CIA PLANNED MY LAI MASSACRE, PAPER SAYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00499R001000110003-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 14, 2000
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: March 25, 1973
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Reltr'se 200A0Q3106:.~~Z- A PP84-004 8001000110003-
2 5 MAR 1973
1A lanned P My
mr,sacre, Paper Says
Attack Called Deliberate Effort to Destroy
.an Entire Village as'Lesson to the Enemy'
agreed to talk only after
being guaranteed anonym-
ity. He said they included
.five Army officers "who
lave been deeply involved
in the AIv Lai affair and
who have had access to se-
;-crct documents about the
massacre."
Two of t h e sources,
Taylor said, w e r e in-
volved in the planning and
:- ` OKLAIIO\I A CITY (P)-
':'31ie Sunday Oklahoman
sirs, Pentagon s o u r c e s
,']rave concluded that the
1968 My Lai massacre in
:South Vietnam "was
:planned and coordinated
,,with the Central Intel-
ligence Agency in a de-
,liberate attempt to wipe
:out an entire village and
.its civilian population as a
.its
to the enemy."
The Oklahoman, quoting
:unnamed sources, s a i d
that the assault, in which
Tearly 450 Vietnamese ci-
vilians were slain, was the
second . CIAplanned at-
tack on the village.
It said the sources
claimed that subsequent
.Army actions, including
an inquiry and the placing
of charges against 25 per-
sons, were a covet-up, "de-
signed only to quiet. public
indignation ... and were
manipulated to avoid in1-
plicating either the CIA or
,'military policy ..."
The Oklahoman article
was written by Jack Tay]-
or, who has made a leng-
thy investigation of the
Aly Lai massacre.
:Anonymity Guaranteed
:Taylor said his sources
execution of the operation
itself."
'T'aylor said the newspa-
p e r' s investigation h a d
turned up circumstanial
evidence to support the
sources' claim but had
been unable to find "expli-
cit proof in any documents
available to the public."
The article said that
evidence within the Army
w a s circumstantial be-
cause virtually all of the
My Lai planning was ver-
bal and documentation
would exist only within
the CIA.
The article says the
sources contend that the
army investigation head-
ed by Lt. Gen. William R.
Peers was a smokescreen
and that Peers? was pur-
posely chosen for his "ex-
tensive CIA background
in order to insure that
the investigation would
steer clear of that aspect."
Army Closed Its Books
The Army said last Sep-
tember that it was closing
its books on the My Lai af-
fair. The only person ever
convicted of criminal
charges in the case was 1st
Lt. William L. Galley Jr.;
two officers and a ser-
geant received administra-
tive penalties.
The Army Court of Jlili-
tary Review last month
upheld Ca11ey's 20-year
sentence, His lawyers
have said they will appeal
to the Court of Alilitary
Appeals, the military equi-
valent of the Supreme
Court, and President Nix-
on has said hr 1)1-rsonally
will make the final review.
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FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM Ten O'Clock News
DATE
March 23, 1973 10:00 PM
FINAL SEGMENT ON CIA
Washington, D.C.
MAURY POVICH: Here with the fifth and final segment of a series
on the Central Intelligence Agency is Metromedia's Walter Rodgers. Tonight,
and in this final part, Rodgers interviews a man with some rather chauvinistic
views of the CIA.
WALTER RODGERS: "The Secret Team" is a new book about the Central
Intelligence Agency that will probably be published sometime next month.
The author, Colonel Fletcher Prouty, is a retired Air Force officer who
used to do much of the CIA's bidding at the Pentagon. He was in the Air
Force working for the CIA. Today we'll tell you about some CIA agents
who masquerade as military officers.
COLONEL FLETCHER PROUTY: There's a tremendous amount of overlap
between CIA and the services. Now in a lot of it it's perfectly normal.
A good intelligence officer in the Navy goes to the CIA for a two year
tour and comes back afterwards a little wiser for his experience. But
that, I don't think, is a return to your question [sic].
What they do is they create cover units, organizations that
appear to be regular army units or regular navy units. And then those
units live overseas. They live in Taiwan; they live in Libya, in the
old days; in Greece, in England. And then those units which appear to
be military units are really CIA units.
Now the military, after a while, begins to live with them, almost
loses track of those units, and they get kind of a free run. But there're
hundreds of them. Hundreds of them all over the world.
RODGERS: Do you think the day of technology has dawned to the
point where the day of the cloak and dagger era is dying for the CIA?
COLONEL PROUTY: Oh, I think it's greater now than ever. Take
something as popular as wiretapping. Okay? Most people visualize a wiretape
like something hitched onto the telephone in their office or at home.
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That's an old system. What wiretapping really does with a computer behind
it is go down to a main switch. If you go over here in Washington to
18th and H where the main telephone switch is, you can bug that switch
and hear every conversation in half of Washington. But you need a computer
to run it all out, to record it and then sort it. I mean wiretapping
is a sophisticated game when you want to do it.
So, sure, the way they go, listening to all kinds of transmissions
all over the world, in the total intelligence community is really fantastic
today, nothing like ever done before. We're aided by missiles, with satellites,
with cameras that have never been approached; with cameras that can do
things that nobody's ever done, with film and lenses. I have all this
in my book.
RODGERS: Who's better at this game, the CIA or the KGB, the
Soviet intelligence agency?
COLONEL PROUTY: Well, I'm kind of proud of our gang. They're
pretty good. And I think that it's a matter of which one we know about,
you know. The CIA probably is a heck of a lot sharper with equipment,
with electronics, with missiles, with aircraft and related equipment,
and with men that have been in the business since way back in the days
of OSS.
It's easier to write books about the KGB, because you can't
prove it, and a man can use a lot of imagination. The CIA is a hard working
crowd in this area, and I think they're tops.
RODGERS: Colonel Prouty is now an executive with AMTRAK, the
nation's government owned rail service.
This is Walter Rodgers, Metromedia Television news.
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