My Lai probe hid policy that led to massacre

The directive in question, a copy of which has been obtained by Inter Press Service, makes it clear that the policy of humane treatment did not extend to civilians in areas which had been under long-term communist rule, as was the case with My Lai. That revelation would have placed the responsibility for the orders on the My Lai operation squarely on Westmoreland's shoulders.

The Peers report found that the troops who entered My Lai and three other hamlets of the village of Son My had been led to believe that everyone in the village should be killed. Testimony before the Peers inquiry also showed that the platoon leaders involved in the operation had been given that same message by two company commanders.

The report concluded that the task force commander responsible for the operation, Colonel Frank Barker, had failed to "make clear any distinctions between combatants and non-combatants in their orders and instructions". The result, it stated, was that he had "conveyed an understanding that only the enemy remained" in My Lai.

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But the directive made it clear that this motivation for humane treatment of civilians did not apply to those who had been under long-term communist rule. A key point in the directive said, "Specified strike zones should be configured to exclude populated areas, except those in accepted VC bases."

The term "accepted VC bases" referred to large parts of South Vietnam, including Son My village and most of Quang Ngai province, where the Viet Minh movement had mobilized the population to fight against the French and where the communist movement had strong organizations throughout the Diem regime and in the early years of the US war in Vietnam.

The directive thus made it clear the US military command's policy was to consider the civilian population in long-term communist base areas as the enemy which could be subjected to the same treatment as communist military personnel. The Peers report description - which avoided quoting directly from the document - effectively covered up the actual intention of the command's policy toward non-combatants in places like My Lai.

Directive 525-3 is not the only piece of evidence pointing to a military command policy of treating non-combatants in Viet Cong base areas as subject to indiscriminate violence. In his own memoirs published in 1976, Westmoreland himself wrote that, once the "free fire zones" were established, "anybody who remained had to be considered an enemy combatant", and operations in those areas "could be conducted without fear of civilian casualties".

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