Lindsey Graham (5:33)
From Wondery. I'm Lindsey Graham and this is American Scandal. The My Lai massacre was one of the most horrific war crimes in American history. Over the course of a Single morning in March 1968, US army soldiers killed more than 500 unarmed Vietnamese civilians, including women, children and infants. And then the COVID up began. Commanders filed false reports, journalists were pressured to lie, and the official story painted an atrocity as a major victory. But not everyone stayed quiet. In the months and years after the massacre, there would be those who risked everything to expose what really happened. This is episode three hunting down Cali it's November 1968 at a surgical hospital in Chu Lai in South Vietnam. Ron Ridenhauer walks down the narrow aisle between the beds, searching for a particular face amid the wounded men. The air smells faintly of antiseptic and mildew. Fluorescent lights flicker overhead, casting a cold sheen over the cots lined in cramped rows. Ridenhauer's army service is almost over. He's due to ship out of Vietnam by the end of the year. But there's one person he needs to talk to before he leaves. He's been chasing rumors of a soldier who didn't join the killing at My Lai, and now he thinks he's found him. Private First Class Michael Bernhardt is propped up in bed on a sweat stained pillow. His legs are raw and bandaged from jungle rot, a brutal infection that eats through the skin. Ridenhour pulls up a chair and introduces himself. Then he explains why he's there, and without much prompting, Bernhardt starts to talk. At first, Bernhardt's voice is flat and detached, but his memories are vivid. He says he watched villagers herded like cattle and machine gunned in ditches. He saw children shot at point blank range. And he names names. Specifically Lieutenant William Calley, the man who had been giving the orders. Captain Ernest Medina, who Bernhardt claims came up to him after the massacre and warned him to keep quiet. Bernhardt was terrified for his own life, so he nodded and agreed not to say anything. But now he knows he can't stay silent. Ridenhauer shakes his head after he first spoke to Butch Groover six months ago. Deep down he had hoped Butch was wrong, that the chaos of the operation had twisted his memories. But since then, Ridenhauer had spoken to three other members of Charlie Company, and now Bernhardt. They all say the same my Lai was a massacre and it's been deliberately Covered up. So even though Ridenhour ships out the next month and returns home to Phoenix, Arizona, he doesn't forget what he's learned about My Lai. Gruver, Bernhardt and the others trusted him enough to tell their stories, but they were all terrified to speak out while they were still in Vietnam and at the Army's mercy. But now that Ridenhauer is back on the relative safety of American soil, he's determined that those responsible for the massacre are brought to justice. In March 1969, a full year after My Lai, Ridenhauer sits down at his kitchen table, lays out his notes and begins to write a letter. It's a five page account of what he believes took place that morning in Vietnam. When he's finished, he sends the letter to more than two dozen officials in Washington. They include President Nixon, 23 members of Congress, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Secretary of the army and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Then he waits. At first, nothing happens. Most of the recipients never even acknowledge the letter. But one takes it seriously. A congressman from Ridenhour's home state of Arizona reads the letter and is concerned enough to forward it to the Army's Chief of Staff, General William Westmoreland. Ridenhour then receives a letter in return from Westmoreland's office. It thanks him for bringing the My Lai matter to their attention and says it's now under investigation. Ridenauer feels like a huge weight has been lifted from his shoulders. While he's horrified about what happened in My Lai, he's still a loyal soldier. He hasn't taken his story to the press or leaked it anywhere else. He wants to believe that now the top brass is looking into the allegations. It means there will be proper accountability at last. And in late April 1969, the Army Inspector General's office does launch a full inquiry. A veteran officer named Colonel William Wilson is asked to head up the investigation. His objective is determine what happened on March 16, 1968, and whether it merits a criminal investigation. Over the course of the next month, Wilson speaks with all of the men who gave their accounts to Reidenauer. Then he meets with Charlie Company Commander Ernest Medina, who gives his version of events. Captain Medina claims that the 11th Brigade's Colonel Orrin Henderson has already conducted an official investigation and found nothing wrong. But Wilson can find no trace of any such report. So he calls Colonel Henderson to Washington D.C. to set the story straight. On May 26, 1969, Henderson sits down in the Inspector General's office across from Colonel Wilson. The walls are blank and the lights are bright. It's not an interrogation room, but it feels that way. Henderson sits in a stiff wooden chair, his officer's hat laid neatly on the table in front of him. Wilson thumbs through a thick folder of notes. The silence stretches between them. Then Wilson looks up and begins peppering Henderson with questions that are answered with practiced ease. Henderson admits that he conducted an informal investigation, but he repeats the official line that there was no civilian massacre. Instead, he insists that officers assure him that there was a brutal firefight that morning. When asked about helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, whose account contradicts that story, Henderson suggests that Thompson is young and emotional. Likely he was simply overwhelmed by the chaos and confused by what he thought he saw. Wilson listens and takes notes, letting Henderson talk. But the longer the interview goes on, the more Henderson begins to contradict himself. He eventually tells Wilson that there was actually another, more formal inquiry into the claims of civilian casualties led by Lt. Col. Frank Barker. But nothing came of that probe either. Unfortunately for Wilson, he can't ask Barker himself about it. Not long after the My Lai operation, Barker was killed in an aircraft accident. And when Wilson goes looking for any record of Barker's supposedly formal investigation, he again finds nothing. Wilson doesn't say his suspicions out loud, though the implication seems clear. If there ever was a paper trail, it's been scrubbed. But Wilson isn't deterred. He continues chasing down the men from Charlie Company, and all their accounts seem to point back toward the same man, the young lieutenant from 1st Platoon, William Calley. Wilson knows that the ultimate responsibility for what happened in My Lai will be far reaching. But according to almost every soldier Wilson has talks to, Lt. Calley was the one rounding up the villagers, ordering his men to kill them, and pulling the trigger himself. So on June 5, 1969, Wilson formally identifies Calley as a suspect. And Calley is immediately ordered to fly back from Vietnam to the US for questioning. A week later, helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson picks him out of a lineup, identifying him as one of the officers he confronted in My Lai. And then, on July 16, Wilson interviews private Paul Meadlow. In a moment of grim clarity, Meadlo admits to what he did in My Lai, confessing to killing unarmed civilians on Calley's orders. And with that, Wilson has all he needs. He submits his findings to the Army's Inspector General, who refers the case to the Criminal Investigation Division, or cid, making the My Lai investigation now a full blown criminal inquiry. In August, the CID interviews former army photographer Ronald Haberly. He and the reporter Jay Roberts were in Milan to Document the mission. Afterward, they both fell in line with the official story and kept the truth to themselves. But when the CID shows up, Haberly makes good on the promise he made a year earlier, that if anyone came asking for proof of what really happened, he'd provide it. He hands over his trove of photographs showing the bodies of Vietnamese civilians piled in ditches. And for the first time, the army has hard evidence. So A month later, 26 year old William Calley is officially charged with six counts of premeditated murder. Although the army suspects the number of his victims may be as high as 109. Publicly, they just release a vague statement that says Calley is being detained because of an ongoing investigation. That's enough to deflect the attention of most reporters. But not Seymour Hersh. He's a 32 year old investigative journalist in Washington, once a rising star at the Associated Press, but having left his job there, now works for himself as a freelance reporter. And in October 1969, he's working in a cramped office on the eighth floor of the National Press building. The walls are yellowed from years of cigarette smoke, and Hirsch sits surrounded by notebooks. His head is down, working hard on a book about the Pentagon. But then the phone rings. Yep, this is seymour Hersh. Uh, Mr. Hirsch, I've got something for you. The caller is a young lawyer new to Washington. A friend of a friend has given him Hirsch's number. He doesn't want his name involved, but he's got a tip the Army's about to court martial a soldier down in Fort Benningen, Georgia. They're keeping it quiet. Why is that? What? What? For 75 South Vietnamese? It could be more. Vietcong. No, civilians. Women and kids even. Hirsch opens a new notebook and grabs a pen. Who's the soldier? I don't know. They're keeping that under wraps. But he's at Fort Benning? Yep, down in Georgia. Okay, what else? What can you give me? Any documents, dates, anything solid? No, that's all I've got. It's all just a bunch of whispers right now, but they seem pretty credible. Well, can I talk to anyone else who might know more? I can't get anyone else involved and keep my name out of it too, okay? They're keeping us all quiet for a reason. There's a lot of people who don't want this getting out. Seymour Hersh sits frozen in his chair for a moment, the phone still gripped in his hand. His mind is already racing. He's covered the Pentagon a good deal in the past. He knows how stories can be buried if the authorities want them to be. But a court martial for mass murder seems like a whole different ball game. Hirsch finally drops a receiver back into its cradle, then rises from his chair, yanks on a battered overcoat, and grabs his notebook off the desk. He should forget about this phone call and focus on his book. He doesn't have a budget for this story or an editor interested in buying it, but he has something more important to him than any of that. He has a lead, and his gut is telling him to follow it.
