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Want to get more from American Scandal? Subscribe to Wondery for early access to new episodes, ad free listening and exclusive content you can't find anywhere else. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. American Scandal uses dramatizations that are based on true events. Some elements, including dialogue, might be invented, but everything is based on historical research. A listener Note this episode contains descriptions of violence and may not be suitable for all audiences. It's November 27, 1969, in Key Biscayne, Florida, an island just off the coast of Miami. President Richard Nixon has retreated to his private estate, here to discuss strategy with his team. It's been two weeks since news of the My Lai massacre hit the front pages. Since then, the press coverage has been relentless. Journalist Seymour Hersh was once only known in certain circles, but now he seems like a household name, and every one of his stories seems more damning than the last. Then there are soldiers like Paul Meadlo and Michael Bernhardt who have gone public, giving interviews on national television about what they saw and did at My Lai. Nixon has had enough of it. Holed up with one of his most trusted aides, he jabs his finger at a yellow legal pad filled with notes and ideas. Now all the talk about this massacre business is going to destroy my Vietnam policy. Just as we're getting traction, just as I'm about to turn the damn tide. We've got to bury this story, get it out of the papers. Well, I understand, sir, but people seem to want accountability. They see this as a moral crisis. It's not a moral crisis, it's a political one. And we're getting boxed in by the press. These guys, they're not on our side. They don't care about the truth. Nixon looks through his pages of notes. This Ridenhour kid, he's a liberal punk, a washout. Why was he the one who started kicking up the dust? He wasn't even there. And Seymour Hersh? Some nobody freelancer just trying to make a name for himself. Now we've got Mike Wallace giving them a platform on 60 Minutes. The army photographer who sold his pictures. How much did he get? His parents are Cleveland peaceniks, you know. And if you ask me, Meatlo is a little too smooth for a farmer. I don't trust any one of them. So, sir, what do you want me to do? I want to smear them so hard that their next interview ends up on the cutting room floor. The Pentagon's too scared to touch them, so it'll have to be us. I want to make sure no one believes another word after their mouths. Well, we could float something through a senator, someone senior who could raise just enough doubt to muddy the water. All right, all right. Maybe a big senator, A gunfighter. Stand up, senator. Someone who'll ask hard questions and get the press to chase their own tail. Time life. CBS will make them all pay for running this story. By the time President Nixon boards Air Force One to head back to Washington three days later, he has a concrete plan for how to deal with the My Lai scandal. Soon there is a covert team at the White House running background checks and assembling dossiers on the men on his. Nixon's instructions are bury the story, crush the sources, and make sure no one traces it back to him. American Scandal is brought to you by the HBO original drama series Task from the creator of Mayor of East Town. Set in the working class suburbs of Philadelphia, Task follows an FBI agent striving to put an end to a string of violent robberies led by an unassuming family man. Don't miss Task, starring Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelfrey. Streaming September 7th on HBO Max. With new episodes every Sunday. American Scandal is sponsored by Mint. Oh my goodness. Summer is over. My daughter is back to school this week, which means new shoes, new clothes, new lunchbox, new school supplies, and she's in sixth grade now, y'. 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I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American scandal. By late 1969, the massacre at My Lai was no longer a rumor. It was front page news, thanks to the work of a handful of whistleblowers and A relentless freelance reporter, the world now knew what happened that March morning in Vietnam. U.S. troops had gunned down hundreds of unarmed civilians and the army and tried to sweep it under the rug. With public outrage growing, a formal investigation was launched into the massacre and the COVID up that followed. Led by three star general William R. Pierce, the inquiry was tasked with establishing the facts and identifying the guilty men. But the question of what justice really meant would linger for the survivors, for the soldiers, and for a nation still struggling to face up to what it was doing in Vietnam. This is episode four justice on Trial. It's early afternoon on December 5, 1969, outside of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. a chilly wind whips through the air as Lieutenant William Calley steps from a government car and makes his way toward the building. Accompanied by his attorney and an army officer. He wears his dress uniform with his cap low and his jaw clenched. Calley led Charlie Company's 1st Platoon when it entered My Lai and has been named as one of the protagonists in the violence that followed. Now he's been summoned to the Pentagon to testify before the Peers inquiry, which is now in its third day of closed door hearings. Calley tries to slip into the building through a discreet side entrance, but it's too late. He's been spotted. Nearly 100 reporters, photographers and onlookers swarm the sidewalk toward him. He shields his face as cameras flash in rapid bursts. Voices rise in a chaotic blur of questions and accusations. Callie's attorney and the army officer carve a path through the crowd, guiding him toward the building's doors. Callie keeps his gaze downward and moves as quickly as he can, refusing to engage with the barrage of hostile comments. Then, as he climbs the final steps, one reporter shouts above the noise, lieutenant Caley, are you sorry you couldn't have killed more women and children? There's an intake of breath from the crowd, but Calley doesn't stop to answer. He simply pushes through the doors and lets them swing shut behind him. Three flights down, in the belly of the Pentagon, Callie enters the Army Operations Center. Here, behind closed doors, the Peers Commission awaits. But despite all the excitement, outside testimony is short. Calley refuses to answer any of the panel's questions except one. When asked about whether there was an internal investigation of My Lai, he tells the room that Colonel Orrin Henderson and Lieutenant Colonel Frank Barker never asked him about the events of that day. Then with that, Callie stands, nods to no one in particular, and walks out. Calley may have stonewalled most of the questions, but he has provided General Piers with One interesting piece of information. If Henderson and Barker did investigate the massacre as they claimed, there would be no excuse for them to not speak with Calley. He may be lying, but if not, it's yet another sign that the internal investigations supposedly conducted were perfunctory at best. Other witnesses called by the Peers inquiry don't get as much media attention as William Calley, but many of them are far more useful. Day after day, the testimonies mount. Helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson recounts what he saw from the air and what he did to try to stop the unfolding massacre. Soldiers, crewmen and officers from all areas are summoned to explain what they know or what they did. Some are reluctant to talk at first, but most of them break under the commanding gaze of General Pierce. And the picture that begins to emerge is more horrifying than even Pearse himself anticipated. What happened in My Lai was clearly part of a far larger crime. During the operation that morning, soldiers and other units in other villages also committed atrocities. And it points to a systemic issue that went beyond just the men in Charlie Company who were on the ground in My Lai. General Piers is determined to get to the bottom of it. He hopes to complete his investigation into these other potential war crimes out of the public gaze. But in mid February 1970, the story breaks in the press. General Piers is sitting at his desk, working late through a stack of classified briefings in his dimly lit office. A small television plays in the background. Although he pays little attention, it's just white noise. But then something flickers on the screen that catches his eye. Just a few words. He reaches for the remote and turns up the volume. On NBC's evening news, two Vietnamese civilians appear on camera, seated beside a translator. Their faces are drawn and their voices low. Through halting translation, they begin to describe what happened in their village of Mi K. It's a familiar sounding story of American soldiers storming in without warning and shooting civilians indiscriminately. They talk about neighbors dragged from their homes and executed, about children gunned down as they ran. Nearly a hundred people were killed in this village during the same operation that leveled My Lai. General Pierce leans forward, staring at the screen. This is just further evidence for what he and his investigators have already pieced together behind the scenes. But now it's public knowledge. And with anger over the scandal likely to grow after these revelations, Piers knows he has to say something soon. So only a few days later, on February 21, 1970, Piers makes his move. After months of exhaustive work, General Piers informs his superiors that the inquiry has Identified more than two dozen men who should face court martial. Most are still on active duty. 14 are officers, some of them senior men with distinguished careers and powerful connections. But time is short. The military has a two year statute of limitations on certain charges, such as dereliction of duty or failure to report a crime, and that deadline is only 23 days away. If charges are not filed by the second anniversary of the massacre, many of the accused could walk free on a technicality. But before Piers can officially submit his report and get criminal proceedings underway, the army insists on doing a review of his work. They want to be careful about what becomes public record. So in the days that follow, army lawyers and senior officers begin combing through Pierce's findings. His report runs more than 250 pages, with appendices, sworn statements and detailed maps. But by the time the lawyers and top brass have finished with it, only 50 pages are cleared for declassification. Those pages offer only a sanitized account of the massacre. There's background information on Quang Ngai province, some organizational charts and official rules of engagement. But the sections on the operation itself and the COVID up that followed are all removed. Officially, the army cites the need to protect the legal rights of the accused. But critics are quick to ask whether that's really the case, or whether it's more about the army trying to shield itself from deeper embarrassment. If Piers had the time, he might push for more information to be released to the public public. But once the army finally signs off on his report, there's only one day left on the charges deadline. So he goes ahead and officially submits his findings to the Department of the Army. Indictments begin to follow immediately. And then, on the morning of March 17, 1970, General Piers calls a press conference at the Pentagon. Flanked by two civilian attorneys from his inquiry inquiry team, General Piers sits behind a table in his full dress uniform. His expression is grave as he looks around the room. It's packed with reporters, photographers and television crews. After an introduction from Secretary of the army Stanley Reeser, General Piers thanks his team. And then he gets to the main reason they're all here. Our inquiry has clearly established that a tragedy of major proportions occurred in the vicinity of the village known as my Lai on 16th March 1960. Today, I can announce that charges have been filed against 14 U.S. army officers in connection with those events. The room stiffens and a few reporters exchange glances. Pierce continues. Included among those charged are Major General Samuel Costner, Brigadier General George Young, Colonel Orrin Henderson, and Captain Ernest Medina. The charges range from false Swearing to dereliction of duty to murder. However, in order not to prejudice the rights of individuals concerned, I am not able to further discuss the events which transpired all around the room. Hands shoot into the air. Pierce picks out one reporter in the second row. Yes, you go ahead, General. Pierce, as a career professional in the army, are you disturbed at all by the fact that 14 officers, some quite high ranking and senior, were engaged in the suppression of information and false swearing? And my implication in condoning this great tragedy, as you describe it, I'm certainly greatly concerned. It does make a difference whether it's a general. But I think the same criterion must be in effect throughout our entire officer corps. We all have obligations as officers, and as a consequence, we must have extremely high standards, and we must make sure our officers stand up to those requirements. After all of this, would you say there was a cover up in the field investigation following the My Lai incident? I would respond to your question by saying that there was testimony and evidence to indicate that certain individuals, either wittingly or unwittingly by their actions, suppressed information from the incident from being passed up the chain of command. How far up the chain of command did personal knowledge of what happened that day go? We have no indication that this got beyond the Americol Division itself. So was this an isolated incident or was it happening elsewhere too? Are there more Me Lais out there that we're yet to hear about? If there are any other such incidents, I have no precise knowledge of them. Well, what about in nearby villages that day? Looking at this list, you have charges placed against a member of Bravo Company. But he wouldn't have been in My Lai at all, would he? He would have been in Miika, where, as I understand it, another 100 civilians were killed. Piers pauses, choosing his words carefully. If you read our prepared documents, you'll see that we refer to the whole area as Son Me. When we went to South Vietnam, we found that the Vietnamese did not know what we were talking about when we said my line. That's the name we associated with the hamlet where Charlie Company was deployed. But that area is really considered part of Son My. So that's what we're talking about here. A collection of sub hamlets in a general area of which My Lai and Mi K are just two. But yes, there were incidents across the other hamlets on that same day. They all fell within the area of operation for Task Force Barker. So why call it the My Lai massacre? Doesn't that understate what really happened? Pierce looks out over the crowd of reporters. His jaw tightening slightly. My Lai has become shorthand for what occurred. But our investigation makes it clear this was not just one village. It was a breakdown in command across an entire region in an entire day. So we're looking at it as one cohesive event. We're not seeking to minimize the scope or mislead anyone. After this series of tough questions, the rest of the press conference proceeds smoothly. General Piers believes that his inquiry has now done what it set out to do expose the truth of what happened in March 1968. Now it's up to the courts to decide what to do next.