1971 anti-Vietnam War event in Detroit, Michigan
The "Winter Soldier Investigation" was a media event sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) from January 31, 1971, to February 2, 1971. It was intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities by the United States Armed Forces and their allies in the Vietnam War. The VVAW challenged the morality and conduct of the war by showing the direct relationship between military policies and war crimes in Vietnam. The three-day gathering of 109 veterans and 16 civilians took place in Detroit, Michigan. Discharged servicemen from each branch of the armed forces, as well as civilian contractors, medical personnel and academics, all gave testimony about war crimes they had committed or witnessed during the years 1963–1970.
With the exception of Pacifica Radio, the event was not covered extensively outside Detroit. However, several journalists and a film crew recorded the event, and a documentary film titled "Winter Soldier" was released in 1972. A complete transcript was later entered into the Congressional Record by Senator Mark Hatfield, and discussed in the Fulbright Hearings in April and May 1971, convened by Senator J. William Fulbright, chair of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Background.
Prompted by numerous investigations into war crimes such as the Russell Tribunal, National Veterans Inquiry and Citizens Commission of Inquiry (CCI), the Vietnam Veterans Against the War wanted to have a large scale public hearing. With the courts martial for the My Lai Massacre making front-page news, and the recent disclosure by members of the Central Intelligence Agency's Phoenix Program of its record of human rights violations in Vietnam, the VVAW was determined to expose a broad pattern of war crimes in Vietnam. The Winter Soldier Investigation (WSI) was intended to prove that massacres like the My Lai were not isolated and rare occurrences, but were instead the frequent and predictable result of official American war policy.
Organizers.
The groundwork for what would become the Winter Soldier Investigation was laid by Jeremy Rifkin, Tod Ensign, Michael Uhl and Bob Johnson of CCI. In search of first-hand information on war crimes, they contacted the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and gained the support of VVAW co-founder Jan Crumb. During the summer of 1970, the CCI were approached by Al Hubbard who had become a full-time organizer with VVAW. Hubbard suggested that CCI combine their efforts with Jane Fonda, Rev. Dick Fernandez of Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV), Mark Lane, and Donald Duncan (who had previously testified at the Russell Tribunal in Denmark). An initial steering committee was formed, consisting of Duncan, Ensign, Fonda, Lane, Hubbard, Rifkin and Fernandez, and continued to organize the WSI through September, 1970.
Among the growing collective of organizers, differences of opinion and direction arose concerning the planned public event. VVAW leaders felt it should be an all-veteran event, to maintain its credibility. Less than three months into planning for the Winter Soldier Investigation, most of the Vietnam veteran organizers and Jeremy Rifkin had become adamant that WSI disassociate itself from Mark Lane. CCI staffers criticized Lane as being arrogant and sensationalistic, and said the book he was writing had "shoddy reporting in it." The CCI leaders refused to work with Lane further and gave the VVAW leaders a "Lane or us" ultimatum. VVAW did not want to lose the monetary support of Lane and Fonda, so the CCI split from the project. The following month, after caustic reviews of Lane's book by authors and a Vietnam expert, VVAW would also distance itself from Lane just one month before the event. Lane had recently published a book, "Conversations with Americans", in which Lane relied on unverified interviews with thirty three servicemen, four of whom were later exposed as unreliable by Neil Sheehan in a "New York Times" book review. Leaders of VVAW feared involvement with Lane would tarnish the credibility of the WSI. A new steering committee was created without Lane, but he was allowed to continue with fundraising events and was available for legal counsel. The new six-member steering committee for WSI was composed of three national office leaders (Al Hubbard, Craig Scott Moore and Mike Oliver) and three members of the growing list of chapters (Art Flesch, Tim Butz, and William F. Crandell). Organizers hoped Lane would keep a low profile during the event, and he did, as he spent his time flying around the country defending his book. Ultimately, the WSI was an event produced by veterans only, without the need of "so-called experts" such as Lane and Fonda.
After the organizers of the national hearings separated into two groups, they each developed their own events. The CCI advanced its plans for a December event in Washington, D.C., while the WSI's new organizers continued with the original plan to hold its hearings in Detroit. The Washington, DC, event would be called the National Veterans Inquiry. The Detroit event would be called the Winter Soldier Investigation. Seven of the 142 total participants would provide testimony at both events.
The support of antiwar celebrities was considered crucial to generate both money and publicity. A series of benefit productions, "Acting in Concert for Peace", were created and featured performances by Jane Fonda, Dick Gregory, Donald Sutherland and Barbara Dane. Two concerts by Crosby and Nash, as well as folk singer Phil Ochs, also raised funds.
The WSI also relied on considerable support from the Detroit community. Dean Robb and Ernie Goodman solicited donations from their fellow local attorneys and several clergymen arranged housing for the witnesses. In the words of the Director of Missions for the Detroit Metropolitan Council of Churches, Dr. John B Forsyth, "It is important that the public realize that American atrocities in Vietnam are an every day ["sic"] occurrence." The Secretary-Treasurer for the United Auto Workers, Emil Mazey and Michigan Secretary of State Richard Austin also helped raise funds for the event.
Purpose.
The purpose of the Winter Soldier Investigation was to show that American policies in Vietnam had led to war crimes. In the words of one participant veteran, Donald Dzagulones,
"We gathered not to sensationalize our service but to decry the travesty that was Lt. William Calley's trial for the My Lai Massacre. The U.S. had established the principle of culpability with the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis. Following those principles, we held that if Calley were responsible, so were his superiors up the chain of command – even to the president. The causes of My Lai and the brutality of the Vietnam War were rooted in the policies of our government as executed by our military commanders."
The name "Winter Soldier Investigation" was proposed by Mark Lane, and was derived as a contrast to what Thomas Paine described as a "summer soldier" in his first "American Crisis" paper, written in December 1776. When future Senator and Secretary of State John Kerry, then a decorated Lieutenant in the Naval Reserve (Inactive), later spoke before a Senate Committee, he explained,
"We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out."
Planning.
The collecting of testimony from veterans had begun under the auspice of the CCI the previous year, and it took almost two months of on-site planning in Detroit to organize the conference. Detroit was proposed by Fonda because of its central location in the American heartland, and the "blue-collar" social status of most of the residents. The steering committee set up a collective in a house on the industrial east side of Detroit with the help of Catholic antiwar activists; and five clergymen of different denominations, including the director of missions for the Detroit Metropolitan Council of Churches, offered housing for the witnesses.
The program consisted primarily of testimony, with 109 Vietnam veterans to appear on panels arranged by unit so they could corroborate each other's reports. Grouping these veterans by unit would also help to establish that events and practices to which they testified were unit-wide policy, and not just random and rare occurrences. Several civilian experts who had been to Vietnam were also to speak during this event. Arrangements had been made to include the testimony of several expatriated Vietnamese students residing in Canada, but they were denied visas to the United States by the Canadian government.
Organizers also investigated the legal implications of veterans publicly admitting to criminal acts which they had witnessed or participated in. With legal advice from the Center for Constitutional Rights, the organizers were assured that the armed forces could not charge or try veterans for crimes committed while they were on active duty. The veterans giving testimony were also instructed not to reveal the specific names of others involved in war crimes. The goal of these hearings was not to indict individual soldiers, but instead to expose the frequency of criminal behavior and its relationship to U.S. war policy.
Credibility of the veterans and their testimony.
Critics have claimed that participants were frauds; that they were told to not cooperate with later investigators; that their testimonies were inaccurate or completely fabricated.
Verifying the participants.
The organizers of the Winter Soldier Investigation took several steps to ensure the validity of the participants. Each veteran's authenticity was checked before the hearings by the investigation event organizers, and subsequently by reporters and United States Department of Defense (DoD) officials. In addition, they also gave specific details about their units and the locations where the events had occurred. Those who wanted to testify were carefully screened by the officers of VVAW, and care was taken to verify the service records and testimony of the veterans. After the severe criticism of the accuracy of Mark Lane's book about atrocities a month before the event, the organizers of the Winter Soldier Investigation made the credibility of the participants a top priority. As noted by one VVAW leader, "The lesson is that we'd better do our work right. We'd better talk to these vets and weed out the bullshitters so that we can't get set up, because we're going to come under attack. We're going to do this right." All veterans participating in Winter Soldier were required to bring their discharge papers (DD-214s) and IDs.
The identifying military affiliation of each veteran testifying, including in almost all cases, the dates of service, appears on the roster for each panel that was included with the testimony in the Congressional Record.
A later search of the service records of at least 2 of the participants found that they could not have been in the claimed location on the relevant date.
Verifying the testimony.
The organizers had two primary concerns when considering the testimony they would use. They wanted testimony that would not allow the scapegoating of individuals when they were attempting to show what was being done in Vietnam was due to policy, not decisions by individual GIs. They also wanted the testimony to be accurate, and double and sometimes triple confirmed by others in the same units. Specific sets of questions were drafted by experienced combat vets to help verify that participants were not fabricating their stories or faking their knowledge, and that only the strongest testimony was used.
According to Army reports compiled by the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) and later reported by the "Village Voice" following declassification, the Army found the allegations made by 46 veterans at the hearings to merit further inquiry. As of March 1972, the CID reported successfully locating 36 of the people who had testified, 31 of whom submitted to interviews.
One WSI participant, Jamie Henry, had reported the massacre he described at the hearings to the Army, which investigated and subsequently confirmed his story. However, the details of the investigation were not made public until 2006, when the "Los Angeles Times" published the declassified information.
Efforts to discredit the WSI.
Months before the WSI event, the organizers anticipated heavy scrutiny and attacks on their credibility, and they prepared for it. Although military documentation was provided, some media organizations such as the "Detroit News" tried to discredit the hearings on the very first day of testimony by questioning the