Winter Soldier Investigation

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The "Winter Soldier Investigation" was a media event intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities by Americans and allies in Vietnam, while showing their direct relationship to American administration and war policies. This 3-day gathering of American Vietnam War veterans, civilians and media took place in Detroit, Michigan, from January 31-February 2, 1971, and was organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. 109 Vietnam veterans and 16 civilians gave testimony about war crimes they had committed or witnessed during the years of 1963-1970. Journalists and film crews recorded the event, and a transcript was later read into the Congressional Record.

Organizers described the event as "anti-war", not in the sense of opposing all wars (compare pacifisim) or as a statement that North and South Vietnam should not have been fighting each other, but as strictly in the sense of opposing America's involvement in the Vietnam War.

A documentary film of the event, called simply "Winter Soldier," was first released in 1972. Due to the controversial nature of the subject matter about an ongoing war, it got little distribution and support at that time and had been archived by its creators, collectively called the Winterfilm Collective. In September, 2005, it was re-released across the U.S. in small art house theatres. Many media reviews have regarded the film highly, as a "powerful" and "emotional" record of the era.

Background

Prompted by numerous investigations into war crimes, such as the Russell Tribunal, National Veterans Inquiry and Citizens Commissions of Inquiry, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War wanted to have a large scale public hearing. With the courts martial for the My Lai Massacre making front page news, and the recent disclosure by members of the CIA's Phoenix Program of its record of human rights violations, the VVAW was determined to expose a broad pattern of war crimes in Vietnam. The Winter Soldier Investigation (WSI) was intended to prove that incidents like My Lai were not isolated and rare occurrences, but were instead the frequent and predictable result of official American war policy.

Organizers

The groundwork for what would become the Winter Soldier Investigation was laid by Jeremy Rifkin, Tod Ensign, Michael Uhl and Bob Johnson of the Citizens Commission of Inquiry (CCI). In search of first hand information on war crimes, they contacted the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and gained the support of VVAW co-founder Jan Crumb. During the summer of 1970, the CCI were approached by Al Hubbard who had become a full-time organizer with VVAW. Hubbard suggested that CCI combine their efforts with Jane Fonda, Rev. Dick Fernandez of Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV), Mark Lane and Donald Duncan (who had previously testified at the Russell Tribunal in Denmark). An initial steering committee formed of Duncan, Ensign, Fonda, Lane, Hubbard, Rifkin, and Fernandez continued to organize the WSI through September, 1970.

Among the growing collective of organizers, differences of opinion and direction arose concerning the planned public event. VVAW leaders felt it should be an all-veteran event, to maintain its credibility. Less than three months into planning for the Winter Soldier Investigation, most of the Vietnam veteran organizers and Jeremy Rifkin had become adamant that WSI disassociate itself from Mark Lane. Lane had recently published a book, Conversations with Americans, in which Lane relied on unverified interviews with veterans, some of which were later exposed as unreliable by Neil Sheehan in a New York Times book review . Lane was removed from the project, and a new six-member steering committee for WSI was composed of three national office leaders (Al Hubbard, Craig Scott Moore, and Mike Oliver) and three members of the growing list of chapters (Art Flesch, Tim Butz, and William F. Crandell).

The organizers of the national hearings separated into two groups, each developing their own events. The CCI advanced its plans for a December event in Washington, DC, while the WSI's new organizers continued with the original plan to hold its hearings in Detroit. The Washington, DC, event would be called The National Veterans Inquiry. The Detroit event would be called the Winter Soldier Investigation. Seven of the 142 total participants would provide testimony at both events.

The support of antiwar celebrities was considered crucial to generate both money and publicity. A series of benefit productions ("Acting in Concert for Peace") were created, featuring performances by Jane Fonda, Dick Gregory, Donald Sutherland, and Barbara Dane. Two concerts by Crosby, Stills and Nash, as well as folk singer Phil Ochs, also raised funds.

The WSI also relied on considerable support from the Detroit community. Dean Robb and Ernie Goodman solicited donations from their fellow local attorneys, and several clergymen arranged housing for the witnesses. In the words of the Director of Missions for the Detroit Metropolitan Council of Churches, Dr. John B Forsyth, "It is important that the public realize that American atrocities in Vietnam are an every day occurrence." The Secretary-Treasurer for the United Auto Workers, Emil Mazey and Michigan Secretary of State Richard Austin also helped raise funds for the event.

Purpose

The purpose of the Winter Soldier Investigation was to show that American policies in Vietnam lead to war crimes. In the words of one participant veteran, Donald Dzagulones, "We gathered not to sensationalize our service but to decry the travesty that was Lt. William Calley's trial for the My Lai Massacre. The U.S. had established the principle of culpability with the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis. Following those principles, we held that if Calley were responsible, so were his superiors up the chain of command — even to the president. The causes of My Lai and the brutality of the Vietnam War were rooted in the policies of our government as executed by our military commanders."

The name "Winter Soldier Investigation" was derived from Thomas Paine's first Crisis paper written in December 1776, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in which he wrote:

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

These words were written to inspire a depressed band of American patriots whose number had diminished due to a series of defeats - the "sunshine patriots" and "summertime soldiers"(rel. "fairweather friend") having deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough. Thomas Paine had begun a series of pamphlets which helped inspire the American Revolution. There were those, known as Tory conservatives, who considered (and branded) Paine and the American nationalist patriots as traitorous radicals. To the establishment Tories, American concepts of freedom and independence from the Crown were simply "treason." In contrast with the "sunshine patriots", those rebels who did not run away, choosing instead to fight and ultimately overcome British rule, were thus by implication "winter soldiers."

Future Senator John Kerry, then a decorated Lieutenant in the Naval Reserve (Inactive), while later speaking before a Senate Committee, further explained "We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out."

Planning

The collecting of testimony from veterans had begun under the auspice of the Citizens Commission of Inquiry the previous year, and it took almost two months of on-site planning in Detroit to organize the conference. Detroit was proposed by Fonda because of its central location in the American heartland, and the "blue-collar" social status of most of the residents. The steering committee set up a collective in a house on the industrial east side of Detroit with the help of Catholic antiwar activists; and five clergymen of different denominations, including the director of missions for the Detroit Metropolitan Council of Churches, offered housing for the witnesses.

The program consisted primarily of testimony, with 109 Vietnam veterans to appear on panels arranged by unit so they could corroborate each other's reports. Grouping these veterans by unit would also help to establish that events and practices to which they testified were unit-wide policy, and not just random and rare occurrences. Several civilian experts who had been to Vietnam were also to speak during this event. Arrangements had been made to include the testimony of several expatriated Vietnamese students residing in Canada, but they were denied visas to the United States by the Canadian government.

Organizers also investigated the legal implications of veterans publicly admitting to criminal acts which they had witnessed or participated in. With legal advice from the Center for Constitutional Rights the organizers were assured that the armed forces could not charge or try veterans for alleged crimes committed while they were on active duty. The veterans giving testimony were also instructed not to reveal the specific names of others involved in war crimes. The goal of these hearings was not to indict individual soldiers, but instead to expose the frequency of criminal behavior and its relationship to U.S. war policy.

Verification of participants' credibility

The organizers of the Winter Soldier Investigation took several steps to guarantee the validity of the participants.

Each veteran's authenticity was checked before the hearings by the investigation event organizers, and subsequently by reporters and pentagon officials. In addition, they also gave specific details about their units and the locations where the alleged events had occured. Those who wanted to testify were carefully screened by the officers of VVAW, and care was taken to verify the service records and testimony of the veterans. After the severe criticism of the accuracy of Mark Lane's book a month before the event, the organizers of the Winter Soldier Investigation made the credibility of the participants a top priority. All veterans participating in Winter Soldier were required to bring their discharge papers (DD-214's) and IDs.

As noted in VVAW records, each veteran's authenticity and testimony were checked after the hearings by Nixon's "plumbers." Charles Colson was assigned the task. In a CONFIDENTIAL "Plan to Counteract Viet Nam Veterans Against the War", Colson wrote, "The men that participated in the pseudo-atrocity hearings in Detroit will be checked to ascertain if they are genuine combat veterans." At one point, the Nixon team suggested in a memo about VVAW, "Several of their regional coordinators are former Kennedy supporters." With the exception of revealing that non-participant Al Hubbard had lied about his rank (Staff Sergeant E-5 instead of Captain), nothing worse was ever produced by these investigations.

Although military documentation was provided, some media organizations such as the Detroit News made further inquiries into the hearings by questioning the authenticity of the testifying veterans. Discharge papers were closely examined; military records were checked against the Pentagon records; after all their digging, not one fraudulent veteran was found. The Detroit Free Press reported daily of participants that had been confirmed by the Pentagon as veterans.

NBC News later reported that VVAW executive and Winter Soldier co-organizer Al Hubbard had lied about being an officer. William Overend states he had met Hubbard and he had been introduced as being a former Air Force captain. Overend later learned Hubbard was only an E-5 Staff Sergeant. Hubbard did not testify at Winter Soldier.

Fritz Efaw, a Chapter Representative of VVAW, stated: "The claims that the WSI hearings contained falsified testimony from men who were not veterans is an old one, and it's definitely false. The testimony was startling even at the time it took place: startling to the general public, startling to the military and the Nixon administration, and startling to those who participated because each of them knew a piece of the story, but the hearings brought a great many of them together for the first time and provided a venue in which they could be heard for the first time. It's hardly surprising that those on the other side would set out almost immediately to discredit them."

Seven years after the hearings, writer Guenter Lewy claimed that a Naval Investigative Service report stated that some who testified had falsified their identities and weren't even in Vietnam. Government officials today cannot verify the report's existence, and no other historian has seen it. Lewy later said that he could not recall if he had actually seen the alleged report or simply been told of its contents.

In addition, the Army found the allegations made by 46 veterans at the hearings to merit further inquiry, and were able to identify 43 of the complainants. The Army's CID investigators attempted to contact 41 of the people who testified; of the 36 they were able to locate, 31 submitted to interviews.

Winter Soldier panels

See Opening statement excerpt in wikiquote

The three days of testimony was presented by unit:

Sunday, January 31st, there were speakers from the 1st Marine Division, 3rd Marine Division, and 1st Air Cavalry Division
Monday, February 1st, from the 101st Airborne Division and 5th Special Forces
Tuesday, February 2nd, from the 25th Infantry Division, 1st Infantry Division, 4th Infantry Division, 9th Infantry Division, and Lieutenant Calley's Americal Division

In addition to the testimony panels, the veterans also held open discussions on related subjects such as "What We Are Doing to Vietnam," "What We Are Doing to Ourselves," violations of international law, Prisoners of War, racism in the military, and also press censorship. Dr. Bert Pfeiffer of the University of Montana presented the first public testimony about the potential toxicity and health effects of the chemical Agent Orange. A special panel of psychiatrists was convened, many of whom had served in Vietnam, to discuss the impact of the war on American society. Midway through the hearings, the organizers insisted that no one make statements on behalf of the Vietnam veterans except for vets. It was presumed by reporters that this was to separate the participation of veterans from that of people like Mark Lane.

Testimony from veterans

Testimony given during the three day event covered both broad policy concerns, such as the use of chemical agents, indiscriminate bombing, and free-fire zones as well as more specific and unusual war crime incidents, including rape, torture and desecration of the dead. The testifying veterans were usually grouped by branch of military service, and geographic location of service. Before launching into their detailed testimony, each gave a brief statement of personal information including rank, division, unit, length of service and a summary of what their testimony would cover. Excerpts from the testimony transcripts:

Stephen Craig: "...My testimony covers the maltreatment of prisoners, the suspects actually, and a convoy running down an old woman with no reason at all..."

Rusty Sachs: "...my testimony concerns the leveling of villages for no valid reason, throwing Viet Cong suspects from the aircraft after binding them and gagging them with copper wire..."

Scott Camil: "...My testimony involves burning of villages with civilians in them, the cutting off of ears, cutting off of heads, torturing of prisoners, calling in of artillery on villages for games, corpsmen killing wounded prisoners..."

Kenneth Campbell: "...My testimony will consist of eyewitnessing and participating in the calling in of artillery on undefended villages, mutilation of bodies, killing of civilians, mistreatment of civilians..."

Fred Nienke: "...My testimony includes killing of non-combatants, destruction of Vietnamese property and livestock, use of chemical agents and the use of torture in interpreting prisoners..."

After giving their brief initial statements, a moderator had each of them elaborate upon their testimony, and then the press and observers were given time to ask questions of the veterans.

Dewey Canyon Operation revealed

The previously secret U.S. invasion of Laos in February, 1969, code-named Operation Dewey Canyon I, became a controversial subject at this event since the Pentagon had denied that any American troops had crossed the Laotian border and carried out military operations. Almost immediately, five veterans from the Third Marines who had returned from the war refuted the claims of the Pentagon. They described their operations in Laos where it was also revealed that they were given meticulous orders to hide the fact that they were American including, but not limited to, the removal of identification and switching to Russian arms that were used by the NVA. They were also ordered them to deny all involvement of American troops in Laos. However, the Marine Corp then issued a statement saying "that no platoons or any large number of marines ever crossed the border." This quickly prompted investigations by American media such as the "Detroit Free Press," "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" and the "Boston Globe" which were succesful in turning up testimonies from other veterans that they had crossed into Laos throughout a 16 month period. It also revealed that the operation extended beyond the Marines as helicopter pilots from the 101st Airborne admitted participation in the American co-ordinated secret operation called Prairie Fire. These revalations that the U.S. government had violated the Cooper-Church amendment as well as international law further darkened the public's opinion on the war.

Winter Soldier results

See the full text of Senator Hatfield urges Congress, State Department and Defense Department to act in wikiquote

Senator Hatfield urges Congress, State Department and Defense Department to act

On Monday, April 5, 1971, Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon made the following an address on the Senate Floor urging Congress, State Department and Defense Department to act.

"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."

The senator went on with recommendations:

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.

Changing perceptions of veterans

As noted by author Gerald Nicosia in his history of the Vietnam veterans movement Home to War,

"Winter Soldier heralded a significant change of opinion in the American public toward the Vietnam veterans -- not only in terms of a new willingness to hear their side of things, but also in the amount of respect and credibility they were accorded. Over a dozen members of Congress endorsed the hearings. South Dakota Senator George S. McGovern, who would challenge Richard Nixon in the 1972 Presidential race, and Congressman John Conyers, Jr., of Michigan called for full Congressional investigations into charges leveled by the veterans at Winter Soldier; and Berkeley's radical black Congressman Ronald Dellums offered the veterans office space in Washington, where they could repeat their charges within a stone's throw of the House Armed Forces Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"Perhaps most striking about Winter Soldier was the great humility of all involved. These men, who deserved to be honored for the courage it took to bare their pain and to assume responsibility for actions their country had asked them to perform -- even as they had already been honored (at least minimally, with medals and citations) for risking their lives in the performance of those deeds -- now came before the world in an attitude of profound apology. On the last night of Winter Soldier, several carloads of veterans drove across the border to Windsor, Canada, to meet with a delegation of Vietnamese students in exile, who had been denied visas by the Canadian government to come to Detroit for the hearings. These American veterans signed their own symbolic "people's peace treaty" with the Vietnamese there. As Jan Barry recalls, the gesture was intended as a means of embracing the people they had harmed, of asking forgiveness for those they had killed.

"Despite the leftist orientation of many of its sponsors, Winter Soldier did not come off as an attack on the United States. What the veterans insisted over and over was that America knew better than to do the things it was doing in Vietnam. They pointed out that search-and-destroy missions, free-fire zones, the relocation of people into strategic hamlets (which were enclosed by barbed-wire, and hardly more congenial than a concentration camp), defoliation of agricultural land, and B-52 pattern-bombing raids against undefended villages and populated areas (which refused to distinguish between combatants and civilians) were all in violation of codes and treaties which the United States had previously signed or accepted: the Rules of Land Warfare, the Geneva Conventions and Accords, and the Nuremberg Charter.

"In effect, the veterans were asking America to listen to its own much-touted morality, and to begin to practice what it had spent two centuries preaching. At the same time, though, the veterans were careful to point out that the war crimes the United States was committing in Vietnam did not stem from the misconduct of individual soldiers -- which the government had tried to establish by scapegoating Calley and a handful of his fellow officers -- but resulted rather "from conscious military policies... designed by the military brass, National Security Council, and major universities and corporate institutions, and passed down through the chain of command for conversion into Standard Operational Procedures (SOPs) in the field."

While no one involved with the Winter Soldier Investigation, and subsequent Senate hearings, ever accused "all" servicemen of misconduct - it was made evident the problem had grown beyond "isolated incident" status. The problem was perceived by the participants as epidemic, and was seen as ignored and even condoned by leaders at all levels in the military and government. Winter Soldier was the culmination of efforts to bring national attention to this situation, and to expedite the end of America's participation in the Vietnam conflict.

Media coverage

Mainstream media all but ignored the Winter Soldier Investigation. The East Coast papers refused to cover the hearings, other than a "New York Times" story a week later. The local field reporter for the "New York Times" commented with disinterest, "this stuff happens in all wars." Several of the VVAW representatives speculated that there was an "official censorship blackout," and they would express this theory later in their newsletter. A few articles that were sympathetic to the veterans appeared in lesser-known publications, and Pacifica Radio, known for its left-wing perspective, gave the event considerable coverage. The CBS television crew that showed up were impressed, but only three minutes made it to the nightly news on the first night -- three minutes that were "mostly irrelevant to the subject," according to VVAW.

The Detroit Free Press printed several stories about the event, including comments from the military. This included confirmation by the Pentagon that WSI participants investigated by reporters were indeed Vietnam veterans. The Pentagons denials of large scale U.S. activity in Laos was was reported as well, until reporters learned from several marines not involved with WSI that operations in Laos had been conducted.

The words of the participants have been permanently recorded in the Congressional Record. Portions of the testimony, as well as some photos of the event, appear in a book produced by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and John Kerry entitled The New Soldier.

In addition, film footage of the event, as well as some pre-event and post-event footage, and commentary can be found in Winter Soldier: A film / Winterfilm Collective in association with Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Winterfilm, Inc., 1972.

Film version: 1972, B&W, 16mm, 93min.
Videotape: 1992, B&W with some color, 110 or 130 minutes
The Winterfilm Collective consisted of: Fred Aranow, Nancy Baker, Joe Bangert, Rhetta Barron, Robert Fiore, David Gillis, David Grubin, Jeff Holstein, Barbara Jarvis, Al Kaupas, Barbara Koppel, Mark Lenix, Michael Lesser, Nancy Miller, Lee Osborne, Lucy Massie Phenix, Roger Phenix, Benay Rubenstein, Michael Weil.

Despite significant fund raising efforts by supporters of the VVAW, the cost of the Winter Soldier Investigation event financially bankrupted the organization. Organizers of the event hoped to recoup some of their expenditures through the above mentioned book, film and recording deals. Orders were taken at the event for copies of the film footage, which was to be made available for $300.

In 2005, a website wintersoldierfilm.com was established to spread information about this documentary and to spread information about further showings of the film (in the United States).

Winter Soldier controversy

See wikiquote for a recollection of the testimony of one of the Winter Soldiers

The U.S. participation in the Vietnam conflict was the source of much deeply divided sentiment among Americans. The Winter Soldier Investigation produced a conglomerate of testimony resulting in the implication and indictment of American leadership in criminal conduct, and thereby further drove a wedge between proponents and opponents of the war. Many people viewed the Winter Soldier proceedings with a critical eye, and questions have been raised about the testimony given at the Winter Soldier Investigation. Details in the testimonies have been questioned, as have the identities of participants, since the first day of the three day investigation. It has been claimed that participants were frauds; that they were told to not cooperate with later investigators; that their testimonies were inaccurate or just plain fabricated. For more than thirty years since the WSI, individuals and organizations have sought to discredit or at least minimize the painful revelations brought forth at that event. To date, no records of fraudulent participants or fraudulent testimony have been produced.

Footnotes

From John Kerry and VVAW
; Column Sixty-Eight; February 1, 2002 (Article with exerpts from the book); . ISBN 0812991036. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)

External links

Winter Soldier Investigation Testimony Partial Congressional Record of Testimony online
World On Fire Columnist Rick Freedman on Winter Soldier
VVAW Archives Winter Soldier Viewpoints
Baltimore Sun Article "Vietnam Vets Stand by Kerry Today"
Wintersoldierfilm.com Re-released documentary of the event
Pitkin's latest 2004 statement Second affidavit by Steve Pitkin

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