Word: calley
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TIME Correspondent Ken Danforth interviewed Calley before the Army announced that the lieutenant would be court-martialed on charges of premeditated murder. Danforth saw him again at Fort Benning last week, but this time was not allowed to speak to him. "He could communicate only with a gesture of recognition," Danforth reports. "He shuffled papers nervously, trying to look busy at his practically empty desk. Under the circumstances, he seemed reasonably cheerful." Calley is attached to the staff of the deputy post commander, Colonel Talton Long, designing plans for the colonel's parking lot and working on an infantry museum...
Former Captain Fred Brown of Tacoma, Wash., knew Calley for six months while he was on duty in Viet Nam and liked the lieutenant. "He was sort of an all-American boy, a real nice guy. The only hang-up he had was the same one everybody there had, to stay out of the line of fire until you could get home." Says William Thomas, who was dean of boys when Rusty was attending Edison High School: "He was just an average American...
Primary Allegiance. Serious legal problems also confront the Army in its case against Lieut. Calley and Sgt. Mitchell, the only active servicemen thus far accused of crimes at My Lai. For one thing, Army lawyers fear that detailed press interviews with potential witnesses may permit the accused to claim that they cannot get a fair trial. Almost surely, moreover, both Calley and Mitchell will argue at their trials that they acted under "superior orders," a legal defense that gained respectability in the 19th century when military officers extolled iron regimentation and insisted that superiors could do no wrong...
...Every G.I. arriving in Viet Nam receives a list of forbidden "war crimes and related acts," including torture, looting, mutilation of enemy dead and the "killing of spies or other persons who have committed hostile acts without trial." Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which Calley is accused of violating, holds a U.S. trooper equally guilty of murder whether his victim is a Vietnamese civilian, an enemy prisoner or a fellow American...
Disputed Orders. One problem for both sides in the My Lai case is to clarify and pinpoint the source of the orders that Calley and Mitchell will claim they obeyed. No one has yet produced records specifying Charlie Company's mission on March 16, 1968. What Calley's orders were that day may not be known until his lawyers present his case in court and others corroborate or contradict his claims. One of the contradictors might well be Captain Ernest Medina, the company commander, who has not been charged and thus may testify for the prosecution that...