If it were possible to find something more execrable in the legacy of Richard Nixon than Watergate, 60 Minutes Overtime,the Web-extra division of 60 Minutes, may have found it. Among the documents in Nixon's presidential library are a slew of handwritten notes of meetings Nixon held with White House chief of staff Bob Haldeman in the days after the My Lai massacre. They raise the possibility that Nixon may have been involved in attempts sabotage the trials of those responsible for the butchery.
One document, scribbled by Haldeman during his Dec. 1, 1969, meeting with Nixon, reads like a threatening to-do list under the headline "Task force - My Lai." Haldeman wrote "dirty tricks" (with the clarification that those tricks be "not too high a level") and "discredit one witness," in order to "keep working on the problem."
"Haldeman's note is an important piece of evidence that Nixon interfered with a war-crime prosecution," says Ken Hughes, a researcher with the University of Virginia's Miller Center Presidential Recording Program.
According to Trent Angers, author of
The Forgotten Hero of My Lai, the targets of those "dirty tricks" were the two surviving members of a helicopter crew that was flying a recon mission over My Lai when the shooting was in progress, pilot
Hugh Thompson and gunner
Larry Colburn. When Thompson, Colburn and their crew chief,
Glenn Andreotta (who was killed by Viet Cong three months after the massacre), saw what was going on, they were so outraged by what they saw that they flew down to stop it. They were even prepared to open fire on members of C Company who were chasing down villagers. Due to their actions, over 100 lives may have been saved--including one wounded boy they pulled out of a ditch. In 1998, they were awarded the Soldier's Medal for their intervention (Andreotta posthumously).
As incredible as it may seem now, Thompson and Colburn were denounced as traitors after the news of the massacre broke, with several congressmen calling for them to be court-martialed. Angers wrote that when that didn't work, two congressmen worked in concert with Nixon to have Thompson's testimony sealed in order to wreck the prosecution's case against William Calley and others involved in the massacre.
Was this one of the "dirty tricks" mentioned in the note? It's up in the air, but it looks pretty damning on the face of it.
James Rife, a senior historian at History Associates Inc., helped author Trent Angers find the Haldeman meeting notes, which are described in detail in "The Forgotten Hero of My Lai."
"I would not characterize [the "dirty tricks" note] as a smoking gun, but it's pretty strong," Rife says. "I don't think we'll ever find an actual document that can make the absolute final link between Nixon and Hugh Thompson."
According to historian Ken Hughes, it's the historical context that makes for a convincing argument. He calls My Lai "a political threat to Nixon," and points out that a substantial part of Nixon's support base refused to believe that killing civilians in a war zone was a crime.
Not only that, but Calley was the only person charged for this horror that did any time at all.
Colburn says that he and Thompson, who died in 2006, knew about the Haldeman notes long before they were released to the public in 1987. Even now, Colburn is stunned at the lack of reaction to them. You have to wonder what that says about us as a nation. After all, had there been more reaction then, and had there been more investigation of the circumstances, would we have even had Abu Ghraib or Blackwater? I doubt it.