.............................................................. >From the New Paradigms Project [Not Necessarily Endorsed]: From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: The Korean War Atrocity Debate (Three stories on the evolution of the exposé) Date: Sunday, May 28, 2000 7:08 PM The Korean War Atrocity Debate (Three stories on the evolution of the exposé) _______________________ Korean War 'Massacre' Story Not True NewsMax,com Friday, May 12, 2000 7:56 p.m. EDT A Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press story about a massacre of civilian refugees in the earliest day of the Korean War ó which was picked up and spread by countless other media, provoking outrage here and in Korea ó is not true, according to two hard-hitting investigative reports out today. Both U.S. News & World Reportand the magazine Stars and Stripes launched investigations of the alleged massacre at the village of No Gun Ri and discovered that the story was so riddled with gaping holes ó and that several key "witnesses" cited by AP were not even there ó that its credibility is practically nil. Published on Sept. 30, 1999, the AP story charged that in June 1950, when U.S. and South Korean forces were facing an onslaught by swiftly advancing North Korean troops, American soldiers acting on orders from their superior officers allegedly machine-gunned hundreds of helpless South Korean civilians huddled under a railroad bridge near No Gun Ri. The shocking story reverberated around the world, sparked an official Army investigation of the alleged massacre and was reported in other publications and on television, many of which added new details from sources cited in the original report. NBC even had Tom Brokaw do a special segment on the story. As with CNN's sensational Tailwind story that suggested American soldiers gassed Vietcong during the Vietnam War, most of the media swallowed the No Gun Ri massacre story without questioning it or even verifying accounts. A Stars and Stripes investigation, however, uncovered startling new information ó also uncovered by a wide-ranging investigative effort of U.S. News ó that casts serious doubts about the massacre allegations and convincingly impeaches the credibility of several individuals identified by the Associated Press as key eyewitnesses. The U.S. News report is hitting newsstands this weekend. According to Stars and Stripes, the AP report "quoted several former U.S. soldiers and South Korean survivors who said that members of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, had fired on and killed several hundred South Korean civilians over a three-day period as they cowered inside a railroad-bridge culvert near No Gun Ri, about 30 miles east-southeast of the city of Taejon in southern South Korea.î But according to declassified Army war diaries and other documents obtained by Stars and Stripes from the National Archives and the National Personnel Records Center, the two eyewitnesses identified by the Associated Press were not with the battalion at the time the alleged shootings took place. Moreover, the unit that allegedly committed the massacre over a three-day period was in the area for only a few hours, after which it fled in disarray. Here is how the Stars and Stripes described the AP story: "The Associated Press report centered on three charges: … "That the American soldiers were ordered by their officers to open fire on all refugees attempting to cross the lines between the advancing North Korean army and the U.S. defenses. … "That the American soldiers ëdirected the refugees into the bridge underpasses Ö and after dark opened fire on them from nearby machine-gun positions,í as the AP reported. The soldiers ëkept the refugees pinned under the bridge Ö and killed almost all of them.í … "The killings took place over the three-day period of July 26-28, 1950.î But the magazineís investigation discovered that: "The specific U.S. Army unit accused of carrying out the massacre of the civilians at No Gun Ri over the three-day period of July 26-28, 1950, was H Company of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment. A declassified war diary of the unit and the rest of the 2nd Battalion arrived by convoy near No Gun Ri the day after the 7th Cavalry Regiment's other two battalions had been attacked by the North Korean army units moving east from Taejon. … "The regimental war diaries and official U.S. Army history of the Korean War make no mention of the unit being dug in at No Gun Ri for three days, reporting only the evening march to the front lines at 6:50 p.m. and the panicked flight of the soldiers back down the valley about seven hours later. Later entries for July 27 and 28 indicate the entire regiment was in sporadic contact with the advancing North Korean army and directed both artillery and air strikes against the enemy while receiving direct tank fire and mortar fire and shifting its positions as the situation required. … "Daily and Flint ó the former GIs the AP report identified as key eyewitnesses to the No Gun Ri incident ó were not even in the area at the time of the alleged shootings, according to the Army documents. Information obtained by the Stars and Stripes undermines the credibility of these two key witnesses," the magazine reported. "A review of the Army war diaries and interviews with former 2nd Battalion members indicates that civilians were undoubtedly killed in the vicinity of No Gun Ri, but the cause was probably a combination of an earlier U.S. air raid in which civilians were accidentally strafed, heavy U.S. artillery fire in the valley and an ongoing practice by the North Korean invaders of driving mobs of civilian refugees ahead of their advancing units to confuse the American and South Korean defenders." A review by U.S. News however, raises substantial doubts about the accuracy of the AP accounts of the so-called massacre. "A dozen veterans were cited by the AP in its account, nine of whom were quoted,î U.S. News said. "But military records and sources provide new evidence that three of the men quoted may not have been at No Gun Ri at the time of the alleged massacre. Five others, re-interviewed by U.S. News, do not support the thesis of the AP story. Of those, three said the statements they gave the wire service were misconstrued or taken out of context. A fourth veteran said there was some brief firing, possibly by a machine gun, and that there was not a large number of people in the culvert. The fifth vet said he fired his machine gun into the tunnel full of refugees but that no one ordered him to do so.î "These guys were inconsistent when we talked to them at the time," admitted Charles Hanley, one of the reporters on the AP team that conducted the investigation of No Gun Ri. "They were all over the map ... but we have approaching 50 sources who confirm that a large number of civilians were killed by American forces at No Gun Ri." In an AP statement released last week after a Web site for veterans named Stripes.com posted a story questioning the AP's reporting on No Gun Ri, the wire service issued a statement saying that "we continue to report developments in this story as vigorously as the original accounts." But anyone reading the two reports cited here can reach no other conclusion that the original story is based on accounts by alleged eyewitness that are simply not credible. The principal source for many of these stories was Edward Daily. In the AP story, he was quoted as saying: "On summer nights when the breeze is blowing, I can still hear their cries, the little kids screaming." He added: "The command looked at it as getting rid of the problem in the easiest way. That was to shoot them in a group. Today," Daily concluded, "we all share a guilt feeling, something that remains with everyone." But Army records show that Daily was not even there at No Gun Ri, nor was he a member of the 7th Cavalry. "In a biographical note he prepared in conjunction with a history he published of the 7th Cavalry, Daily said he was a newly commissioned second lieutenant in H Company of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, when his platoon was overrun by North Korean troops on Aug. 12, 1950, and he was taken prisoner. ëWith the grace of God,í Daily wrote, ë[I] managed to escape from the enemy on Sept. 12, 1950, and was held captive only 32 days.í î But documents from the Army's Personnel Records Center say that during the period cited by Daily, he was working as a mechanic with the Army's 27th Ordnance Maintenance Company. There is no record of Edward Daily's ever having been a prisoner of war. In addition, records show he was discharged from the Army as a sergeant, not as a captain as he had claimed. "There are other apparent discrepancies in Daily's war record. He claims to hold the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second-highest award for valor; the Silver Star, and the Purple Heart. Army records again tell a different story. Daily was awarded the Korean Service Medal, the United Nations Service Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation Badge, and the Meritorious Unit Emblem. Daily received no medals for valor or combat action, the records show. Hanley, the AP reporter, says, ëThere are some suspect things about the medals.íî Yet Daily was celebrated by the media, none of whom showed any doubts about him or his accounts of the so-called massacre. "NBC's Dateline flew Daily to Korea to visit the No Gun Ri site,î U.S.News recalled. "Daily told Tom Brokaw about receiving the order to fire on the refugees under the railroad trestle. "Just shoot them all," Daily quoted the order. Brokaw: "You heard that order?" Daily: "Yes, sir." Brokaw: "Kill them all?" Daily: "Yes, sir." In February, the Washington Post Magazine put Daily's picture on the cover and said he "was in charge of the lone machine-gun post" on one side of the railroad culvert. The Los Angeles Times, Time, Newsweek and U.S. News all published stories citing Daily's account of No Gun Ri. Moreover, when the AP broke the No Gun Ri story it generated enormous attention. Defense Secretary William Cohen ordered the Army to investigate to "determine the full scope of the facts surrounding press reports of civilian deaths" at No Gun Ri. The Army's inspector general launched an exhaustive investigation, which is still under way. And last month, the team of Associated Press reporters who broke the No Gun Ri story was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, journalism's highest honor. The story was a natural for todayís yuppified anti-military media, which showed no concern for the reputations of the heroic men who fought in those early days of the Korean conflict when vastly outnumbered American soldiers valiantly held on to a tiny perimeter around the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, until reinforcements could arrive and prevent the North Koreans from wiping out all resistance and conquering all of Korea. Find out how the media distorted the truth about Vietnam and the heroic men that fought there. Read B.G. Burkett's and Glenna Whitley's Stolen Valor ---------- May 14, 2000 Reporters and Editors Defend A.P. Report on Korea Massacre By FELICITY BARRINGER t was a story no one wanted to hear." Those were the opening words of The Associated Press's Pulitzer-Prize winning report documenting the massacre in 1950 of hundreds of South Korean civilians by American troops at No Gun Ri. When they were crafted by an editor during one of the numerous rewrites, the report's authors found them an apt description of A.P. executives' initial response to their findings. Now, attacks on the credibility of three witnesses have given the words an even more ironic cast. U.S. News & World Report and the Web site Stripes.com are citing documents that undermine the credibility of three of a dozen soldiers cited by the A.P. report. All the soldiers' accounts dovetailed with those of two dozen Korean survivors cited by The A.P. >From the moment in April 1998 when the news agency's special projects unit decided to check Korean civilians' claims of a massacre, to the recent publication of debunking reports by the Internet site and by U.S. News & World Report, the No Gun Ri reporting has been something of a battlefield in its own right. In March 1999, six months before the report's publication, top news service executives moved to shelve it, according to a reporter and an editor who worked on the project. "I knew we were going to win, because we had such a powerful story, powerfully reported, and we were not going to let it be killed. Period," said the reporter, Charles J. Hanley, who has spent most of his career at The Associated Press, once serving as deputy managing editor. Robert Port, initial editor on the project until he left the news service last June, said: "I'm surprised it took this long for the attacks to begin. We expected it. I was certainly ready for it. The reporters were ready. I am not sure the leadership of The A.P. will ever be ready. They are too restrained in defending their own work, out of a sense of remaining objective and neutral." Asked if the No Gun Ri account will stand up under scrutiny, Jon Wolman, the executive editor of the news service, said: "It's been a complicated and important project, and we've always felt it deserves full scrutiny. We're confident that the reporting is sound and that the central information will be borne out by the investigations by governments in both the United States and Korea." The internal struggle over the account, as members of the reporting and editing team describe it, reflected in part a clash of cultures in a large and journalistically conservative organization that sets fairness and balance as its core values. But it also reflected the difficulty of adapting such values to the messy and contradictory business of reconstructing 50-year-old events. Finally, the internal struggle played out during the year of the Lewinsky scandal, a year in which a series of embarassing journalistic missteps had put the whole profession on the defensive. One of the most publicized missteps also involved witnesses' accounts of an apparent military atrocity: The "Tailwind" report, investigated and retracted by CNN, alleged that American troops in Vietnam had used nerve gas in a mission to kill defectors. In fact, in the aftermath of Tailwind, the No Gun Ri team sent a memo to their superiors explaining how their evidence differed from the material supporting the Tailwind report, according to two team members. The reporters on the No Gun Ri story were Mr. Hanley, Martha Mendoza and Sang-Hun Choe; the editors directing the project were first Mr. Port, who left to join APBNews.com, then Kevin Noblet, who left to spend a year teaching at an Ohio college, and finally Nick Tatro. "This was a difficult and frustrating process," said Ms. Mendoza, who now works in the A.P.'s San Jose bureau. According to Mr. Port and Mr. Hanley, the most consistent objections were raised by the former executive editor of The A.P., William Ahearn. Mr. Hanley said that at a meeting in the fall of 1998, Mr. Ahearn was skeptical about the importance of the incident. Mr. Ahearn could not be reached for comment. Six months later, on March 2, 1999, according to Mr. Port and Mr. Hanley, Mr. Ahearn told the team that he did not believe that the account, by then redrafted several times, should be published. Mr. Port said he had appealed to Louis D. Boccardi, the president and chief executive of The A.P., who suggested that if further changes would damage the report, Mr. Port should consider abandoning it. Mr. Boccardi also could not be reached for comment. Next, Mr. Port talked to Mr. Wolman, then the managing editor. As Mr. Wolman recalled, "I know I told him it was an important story and I was sure we'd make it to the wire." It took six more months for the report to appear in its final form. During the early months of the project, Mr. Hanley said, "We were revising and refining, looking for some magic approach that would break this chill on the story without any direction from above." For Mr. Wolman, any editing process can be contentious. "We needed to satisfy our standards for accuracy, context, fairness and thoroughness, and we wanted to provide a multimedia account as well as a newspaper story," he said. "It can be a bumpy process, and it was, but the story will stand up." Ask questions about International News and tell other readers what you know in Abuzz, a new knowledge network from The New York Times. ---------------- NYT May 16, 2000 A.P. Releases Files in Debate Over Massacre in Korean War By FELICITY BARRINGER ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Related Article o Report Disclosing Massacre by G.I.'S Is Under Question (May 13, 2000) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Associated Press released detailed evidence yesterday to rebut critics of its Pulitzer Prize-winning news report that said American soldiers, acting under orders, killed hundreds of South Korean civilians in July 1950, in the early days of the Korean War. Among the evidence was a document that cast doubt on part of a critical article by U.S. News & World Report that said records showed that one witness had been evacuated a full day before the shootings began. An editor for the magazine said the document was not included in its report through "an oversight." In addition, The Associated Press released full-length quotations from two former servicemen who said in the pages of U.S. News that The Associated Press had misquoted them. In both cases, the full quotations tended to refute that claim. The documents and interviews are part of a controversy that is being closely watched by journalists, military observers and diplomats, because the outcome of the debate over the report could affect United States-South Korean relations. If a Pentagon-authorized commission that is investigating the case determines that the soldiers had been given orders to fire, that could mean that a war crime had been committed. Defense Department officials told The New York Times last week that they had confirmed the central element of the report, that United States troops had fired on unarmed civilians, killing hundreds. But on the crucial question of whether the troops were acting under orders, the evidence provided in the dueling journalistic accounts is both ambiguous and contradictory. Under the headline "Doubts about a Korean 'Massacre,' " a U.S. News reporter, Joseph L. Galloway, wrote, "There is little doubt that something terrible happened there." The article offered evidence from military documents that indicated that three witnesses quoted by The Associated Press -- Edward Daily, Delos Flint and Eugene Hesselman -- were not at the scene at No Gun Ri at the time. The Associated Press rebuttal reported that the magazine, in its suggestion about Mr. Flint, relied on a "war diary" written days later at the regimental level and ignored a "morning report" filed daily from the front. The morning report, indicating the location and status of G.I.'s, indicates that Mr. Flint was wounded on July 26, the day of the reported shooting, and could have been there to witness it. The executive editor of the magazine, Brian Duffy, said last night, "We should have cited the morning report that said he was wounded on the 26th, and on our part it was an oversight." Another veteran who served in one of the units said to be involved in the killings, gave conflicting accounts to the reporters for The Associated Press and Mr. Galloway, The A.P. released the full text of his remarks to them yesterday. The text indicates that when the veteran, Herman Patterson, said, "It was just wholesale slaughter," he was speaking of the events at No Gun Ri, not another battle. Mr. Patterson told U.S. News that those remarks were taken out of context. A second witness who is being challenged, Edward Daily, told The Associated Press and other news organizations, including NBC News, The Washington Post, The New York Times and U.S. News, that he was a machine gunner at No Gun Ri and that he fired, under orders, into the refugees huddled under the stone bridge there. But Mr. Daily's service records, obtained by U.S. News, "show that Daily was not at No Gun Ri on July 26, 1950; nor was he a machine gunner," the magazine reported. The wire service account acknowledges the discrepancy in the records. The wire service and U.S. News have reported that the original personnel records were lost in a fire in 1973 at the Army personnel records center in St. Louis. The current personnel records have been reconstructed. The Associated Press reported yesterday that other veterans said they saw Mr. Daily at No Gun Ri. The wire service also said Mr. Daily had showed them a variety of documents attesting to his service in H Company, one of the units involved, in the months before the attack. Those papers included a driver's license and a menu from a dinner held by H Company at Christmas in 1949 that lists him with the company. Mr. Duffy said the U.S. News research had also found a menu from another Christmas dinner in 1949 that also listed Mr. Daily as an attendee. That menu is from the 27th Ordnance Maintenance Group, where Mr. Daily served from March 1949 to March 1951, according to the reconstructed records. That unit was stationed far from No Gun Ri. In March 1951, the records show, Mr. Daily joined H Company. Mr. Duffy said of Mr. Daily's documents: "They are just not that consequential, given the fact that the records available as to his service show he was in an entirely different unit and that he was only in this H Company 7th Cavalry months after" the shootings Forwarded for info and discussion from the New Paradigms Discussion List, not necessarily endorsed by: *********************************** Lloyd Miller, Research Director for A-albionic Research a ruling class/conspiracy research resource for the entire political-ideological spectrum. **FREE RARE BOOK SEARCH: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ** Explore Our Archive: <http://a-albionic.com/a-albionic.html> <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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