CNN/Time's Nerve Gas Story & Retraction - A Special PROBE Report

David Zimmerman's newsletter on science, media, policy and health ► Vol. VII, No. I October I, 1998, New York, NY

$10 U.S. Used Nerve Gas, How &Why Vietnam VetsAss ert we wrote this story - see p. 3 By David R. Zimmerman retired. Their motto, according to Lt. Robert Yan Buskirk. then 26, who led the unit after its commanding officer. Capt. Eugene Based on original reporting for CNN by April Oliver and Mccarley, was wounded, was: Jack Smith, with ·'Kill them all, and let God sort it out!'' The used the nerve gas in combat He adds: at least once, and perhaps far more often, during the war in "My orders were, if it's alive, if i1 breathes oxygen. if it uri­ Vietnam, according to U.S. commandos who were there, and nates, if it defecates, kill it'" who suffered nonlethal symptoms when wind blew the gas their U.S. raids in were previously widely reported. The use way. Sarin, which incapacitates and can kill humans. was used of nerve gas, and orders to kill American defectors were not - to rescue U.S. commandos being attacked by enemy forces in they are CNN exclusives. Yan Buskirk says he dropped a white Laos, which borders Vietnam on the West. phosphorous grenade down a hole - a cave or tunnel cntram:c Laos was officially neutral. But supply lines - onto one, possibly two, tall, white. blond young men. One (the Ho Chi Minh trail) to passed through Laos of them shouted to him briefly in unaccented American - where the U.S. fought a covert and illegal war to cut them. English. The war in Laos was run by the CIA, several sources, including "Fuck you!" were his last words. the then-head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), told CNN. Other participants in the raid recalled this incident directly. The military code name for sarin was GB. When packed for Two of them told CNN's journalists that it was standard oper­ delivery from the air in cluster bomb units (CB Us), its code was ating procedure to kill defectors. Singlaub. the then SOG chief. CBU-15. told CNN: Sarin allegedly was used specifically to support 16 U.S. com­ "It may be more important to your survival lO kill the defector mandos and about 140 mercenaries, called Mo11tag11ards. or than to kill the Vietnamese or Russian." Defectors· knowledge Mountain men, in a September, 1970 military operation, called of U.S. communications ··can be damaging.·· he explained. ··Tailwind." This was an attack on an enemy village/base camp, near the Laotian town of Chavan - about 60 miles west of the Denials Issued South Vietnamese border. vehemently challenges these accounts. It has told CNN that there were only two known military defectors Operations Were Secret during the . A Pentagon official said the Army Tailwind's basic mission, according to then U.S. Chairman of "has found no documentary evidence to support CNN"s claims the JCS, Admiral Thomas Moorer, U.S.N., who is now 87 years that nerve gas of any type was used on :· old and retired, was to damage enemy supply lines. The com­ (See story, page 2.) mandos belonged to a euphemistically-named Studies and The Secretary of Defense at the time, Melvin Laird. told CNN Observation Croup (SOC), which conducted so-called "black he had no specific recollections of GB being used. He said Pres. operations," outside the rules of war. They could - and did - Nixon's national security team would have had lO approve it. kill noncombatants, including women and children on Henry Kissinger, the National Security Advisor at the time. Tailwind, four SOG veterans told CNN. refused several CNN interview requests. Also refusing !O be The SOG men also were authorized and ordered to kill interviewed were then-CIA Director Richard Helms. SOG Chief American defectors, if they found them, according to Tailwind John Sadler, military advisor Gen. Alexander Haig. JCS participants and the SOG chief, Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub, Chairman Henry Shelton, and Defense Secretary William Cohen. continued on page 6

© 1998 The Probe Newslette,; Inc. Pentagon Flatly Denies Charges Following CNN and Time's retractions of their Tailwind CNN allegations. The DoD quotes Moorer as saying ·'he never reports, the Pentagon released its own investigational reports on confirmed anything" to the CNN reporters because he couldn't the charges. Based on several thousand hours of archival remember anything about Tailwind. He said he knew nothing research, and interviews with Tailwind vets and others, the about sarin or the targeting of defectors and in fact CNN's April Pentagon - the Department of Defense (DoD) - declared: Oliver asked him "trick" questions. • "No records or personal recollections were discovered to Vogt called CNN's story "absolutely unbelievable.'' suggest that targeting U.S. defectors played any part in (CNN reportdedly has sellled a defamation suit tiled by [Tailwind)." Moorer for about $200,000, according to the New York Times. • "No evidence could be found that sarin was used in The SOG chief, Gen. John Singlaub has filed a similar suit Operation Tailwind." against CNN and producer Oliver. CNN also faces other suits.) The purpose of the raid, DoD says, was "a reconnaissance in The DoD researchers interviewed Lt. Van Buskirk and Sgt. force to engage the enemy and divert enemy attention from Mike Hagen, who appear to have stuck with their ··version of Operation Gauntlet, [which was] an offensive operation to [the] events," the DoD report indicates. Jay Graves and Jim regain control of terrain in Laos." Cathey, also cited by CNN, were not interviewed because they The DoD report, issued July 21, adds that contemporaneous didn't participate in Tailwind. records and commandos' personal recollections do not support the allegation that women and children were blled. Pilots Interviewed Tailwind's planner and director, retired army colonel John The Air Force spent 1500 hours reviewing the sarin allega­ Sadler, who was not part of the , said he arrived tion, and said the gas never went further west than Okinawa, "after the fight was over. I only saw two bodies ... . " where it was stored. Based on interviews with pilots. munitions However, the report also cites Lt. Robert Van Buskirk's after­ loaders, and others at the Nakhon Phanom air base. in Thailand. action report claiming a confirmed 54 killed in huts, bunkers where the Tailwind air support was based. the DoD reports that and spider holes, and an estimated 42 enemy dead outside the none of the special handling that sarin would have required - village/base camp. rubber aprons for the munitions handlers. for example - were used forTailwind. The Air Force says the gas that was dropped Documents Captured to support the SOG force's evacuation was CS in clus­ Sadler added that two footlockers of documents obtained in ter bomb units called CBU-30s. the raid were described by Gen. Creighton Abrams, the theater "Sarin gas was not used." commander, as "the best logistics intelligence every gained in Military records from the North Vietnamese governmentdo not the Vietnam War." mention lethal gas attacks in Laos in September. 1970. DoD says. The DoD report quotes Adm. Thomas H. Moorer and his The DoD also interviewed the Tailwind medic. retired Army Joint Chiefs of Staff associate Air Force General John W. Vogt captain Michael Rose, who was caring for wounded rnmman­ - who was not quoted by the CNN team - as denying the dos during the evacuation. He said: I "We got hitwith gas. It was CS [tear gas]. I know what CS is from basic training - it's like skunk. Once you smell il. Doubt Cast on Account you never forget, even if it's 50 years later. It was detinitely tear gas "l had never either known about it personally,nor had I .... My wounded [men] were in dislress. I never saw any evidence found anything about it in my research ...not even as of nerve gas .... I'm living proof that toxic gas was not dropped on rumor." us that day. Nobody showed any signs of exposure to toxic gas." ■ This is the reaction of American journalist and author Jane Hamilton-Merritt to the allegation that the U.S. used sarin in Laos. She was close to the CIA in Laos at the time of Operation Tailwind, and covered the secret PROBE Editor and Publisher war in Laos from, among other places,the CIA's clandes­ David R.Zimmerman tine airfield in Northern Laos. Circulation: Comptroller Operation Tailwind was in Southern Laos. Tom Gilgut Veva H. Zimmerman Hamilton-Merritt, speaking by phone, said that she called her Laos contacts after the CNN cablecast in June. PROBE is written and published independently, on a "We all came up with a zero," she said. monthly schedule. Subscription: $60 per year. Editorial office: 139 West 13th St., New York City, NY 10011-7856. If sarin had been used, she added, she would have Phone: 212-647-0200. For subscriptions, Box 1321, expected the North Vietnamese or Laotian government to Cathedral Station, New York, NY 10025. Opinions protest. They didn't. expressed are those of the Editor and Publisher, unless Hamilton-Merritt's book on Laos, Tragic Mou11taill, otherwise indicated.Contents of this newsletter may not be was published by the University of Indiana Press in 1993. reproducedwithout permission. ISSN 1062-4155

Page 2 Prube Restoring the Record: How&Why P.1 StoryWas Written On Sunday, June 7, CNN, in collaboration with Time, "Valley of Death" is one of three recent journalistic exposes transmitted a cablecast called "Valley of Death"; Time pub­ - the others were in the Cincinnati Enquirer, on the Chiquita lished an article next day headlined "Did the U.S.Drop Nerve banana company's business practices, and in the St111 f Jose Gas?" Time's drop line says: MercuryNews on CIA links to the drug trafic - that have been "A CNN investigation charges that the U.S.used gas in 1970 retracted, with the reporters fired or disgraced, and their careers to save troops sent into Laos to kill defectors." threatened as the result. Critics have treated ··valley" as a mat­ The "gas" was sarin, code-named GB, or alternatively, CBU- ter of up-the-chain-of-command authority and credibility: the 15. It is a nerve gas that acts, via the lungs, when inhaled; it can higher up you are, the more credible you may be. The CNN be lethal. A military manual calls it a "quick-action casualty producers, on the contrary, see it as an eyewitness account by agent" that causes "cessation of breath - and death may follow." the people at the bottom of the chain, who were there on the Both of the stories' explosive allegations - that CBU-15 was ground in Laos. used, and that the U.S. targeted and killed defectors - were "Valley" also fallssquarely into PROBE's domain - science exclusive findings by a CNN investigative team that included and medicine - because one critical issue is the technical producers April Oliver, 36, and Jack Smith, 62, working under meaning of non-scientists' accounts: of the four gases then in executive producer Pamela Hill. the Air Force's arsenal, which one's effects fit the commandos· description of what happened to the enemy and to themselves Producers Were Fired when they were hit by the gas on September 14, 1970. All three have since been fired by CNN. CNN and Time - We hope to help readers - the public - resolve this puzzle. both owned by Time-Warner - have retracted the stories. We wrote our Page I story to put the CNN producers' story back They were pressured to do so by the Pentagon and veterans, on the public record, so that you can have the basic infomrntion they say candidly (see Box p. 6). But their decision to with­ you need to make this decision. draw the stories and fire their producers, early in July, was CNN's supposedly independent investigation of "Valley" predicated on what CNN claims is an "independent" investiga­ was conducted by well-known New York publishing lawyer tion that it commissioned on the stories' accuracy and sourcing. Floyd Abrams. What was not widely publicized is that Abrams' Why have we looked into this story? continued on following page Tailwind Story Raises Key Questions The discord over "Valley of Death" including the A/K Report, claim that be interviewed for the cablecast. raises the journalistic question: CNN made these charges. But a careful A final journalistic question is the level How many sources are needed in order reading (and rereading) of the original of proof that is required for a story. to go with a story? The industry standard script shows that CNN reported what its Obviously, serious charges require - there is no legal requirement - is interview sources said, asserted, or stronger evidence than minor ones. The two: One source who alleges or asserts a alleged. Nowhere does CNN "charge" A/K Report says the producers fell short proposition - "The U.S.used nerve gas that this was so, albeit it might have done of "the full scale support for the hroad­ in Laos," for example. A second, prefer­ so if it wished to: Media companies cast that should have been demanded ably also on the record, to confirm it: sometimes make such charges. But CNN before it aired." This is ambiguous. "Yes, based on my knowledge (or expe­ did not do so here. What is "full scale support'''! rience), that is correct. The U.S.did use High U.S. officials whom the produc­ CNN management. A/K Report in nerve gas .... " ers approached for comment on hand, said, in retracting the story. that the Even without Buskirk and Moorer, CNN Tailwind, including Henry Kissinger - cablecast failed to .. prove" that nerve gas had more than enough allegations and con­ who would have had to have known was used. As Oliver and Smith say in firmations to broadcast and publish the about it, in his role as a National Security their rebuttal. "CNN has now raised the findings- eight on the sarin, Oliver said Adviser - refused to comment. Then, bar for going with a story to a level .n or later on CNN (see p. 8 for the allegations after the cablecast, Kissinger and others above the criminal justice systcm·s stan­ and confirmations of nerve gas contained vehemently denied the key allegations. dard, proof beyond a reasonable doubt" in the producers' BriefingBook.) If CNN management had properly This is of course an absurd standard. If This leads to a second journalistic backed their reporters - which they it were universally observed. newspapers question: Who is making the incendiary failed to do - they would have ignored would be filledwith blank space, and the charges that nerve gas was used, and or deeply discounted ex post facto air waves and cable networks would be defectors targeted? CNN and its critics, denials from people who had refused to pocked with dead time. •

October 1998

Page 3 after exhaustive research, was rooted in considerable support­ ive data," but "the central thesis ...could not ...and cannot How... be sustained now. CNN's conclusion that U.S. troops used continued from preceeding page nerve gas during the Vietnamese conflict on a mission in Laos co-investigator in the probe was David Kohler, Esq., a CNN designed to kill American defectors is insupportable. lawyer. He is a senior vice president of CNN and the network's "CNN should retract the story and apologize." general counsel. Kohler in facthad originally approved "Valley CNN did. So did Time. of Death," legally, for presentation. But, like CNN's top man­ Producers Oliver and Smith rejoined, in "Tailwind." an agement, he became badly embarrassedby it. unpublished "Rebuttal to the Abrams/Kohler Report." or Abrams and Kohler wrote in their "Report on CNN Rebuttal. They say the A/K Report was hastily done, and is Broadcast," or A/K Report, that "the broadcast was prepared filled with significant inaccuracies, mistakes and omissions: [It] Is thin on detail, and shows a weak and superficial understanding of the facts upon which the broadcast was based. It makes unsupported propositions regard­ Hypothetical? Ing the credibility of sources, appears to rely on third party reporting, virtually ignores the most significant confirming and corroborating statements from sources, Or Credible? and repeatedly proposes ambiguities which are at odds with any common sense reading of the interview tran­ You Decide! scripts. The 32-page A/KReport was based, of course, on the CNN cablecast and published Time article, as well as other sources. This is how the A/K Report characterizes one of three But its foundationwas a meticulously made 156-page Briefing high" ....military sources whom the CNN producers used as Book, prepared by the CNN producers prior to the cablecast's confirmatory.... sources: airing. It documents their sources. It includes transcripts of a former high rankingofficer intimately familiar audio and video interviews with these sources. and other mate­ withry. SOG [T]he source'sresponses, ...although support­ rial. Oliver and Smith's 83-page, single-spaced Rebuttal also is ive, are ambiguous. They are, possibly deliberately, blur­ largely based on the Briefing Book. Such responses are not irrelevant but they are suf­ We have read the material described above, including CNN's ficiently ambiguous that they cannot be said to provide the script. Our first view, based on the Time article - we missed full scale support forthe broadcast that should have been the CNN cablecast - was that the work was sloppy. But on demanded before it aired."### reading and rereading the file, PROBE has come to a different conclusion: The story is more than adequately sourced. and should not have been retracted. should stand. This is one of several exchanges on this subject between The largest section of the A/K Report is an attack on the cred­ April Oliver and this source: ibility of one source, Admiral ThomasIt Moorer (ret.), who was Q: But we have alreadyestablished that you know of the Chairmanof the Joint Chiefs of Staff(JC S) in 1970. He ran the use of CBU-15 [sarin] in this specific instance on war. The Report notes that he now is 87 years old, living in a Tailwind. You have told me that in this conversation retirement home - and it suggests he is senile an

broadcast .... It is doubtless supportive of the broadcast. but How... with some of the same problems we have seen elsewhere l of! a continued from previous page producer overstating her case to the source. and the source directly to the producers (they did meet, however) and there responding positively but with ambiguity to the producer." is thus no way forus to assess the precise questions asked of The NK Report goes on to cast doubt on the credibility of and answered by the source." two of the several veterans who made the sarin gas allegations. Nevertheless, Abrams and Kohler say: "Based on our One of them, a principal source, Lt. Robert Van Buskirk. led the interview with the intermediary, ...we believe that the state­ operation, briefedAdmiral Creighton Smith on it. and received ments of the source were properly viewed by CNN as lending the Silver Star forvalor. Buskirk is a born-again Christian.and considerable support to the broadcast." has been taking prescription drugs fora "nervous disorder... He In other words, this confidentialsource is okay. did not mention poison gas in a book he wrote on Tailwind 15 • "A third confidential source was a former senior military years ago, "because it was still top secret." but some of his cer­ officer who provided CNN with information on background. tainty about what gas was used "may well have been colored by [This] provided CNN with a level of support forthe truth of the continued on page 9

Page 5

October 1998 Nerve Gas . •• continued from page 1 A few days beforethe raid,a SOG reconnaissance team,led by Jay Graves, was dropped into the nearby jungle. Using a spotting scope, they saw a dozen or so tall, white men among the shorter,darker men and women in the target camp. Graves was told by radio to hide until the main raiding party, called a arrived.

HatchetGases Force, Described The availability and use of gases, dropped from the air in support of rescue operations behind enemy lines,were standard operating procedure in the Vietnam War, according to Mccarley, Graves, and several others on the record, up the chain of command to ex-JCS chairman Moorer. Other high­ anything in the U.S. arsenal" for support, "except nuclear level officerswith direct knowledge of Tailwind also confirmed weapons," correspondent Peter Arnett said. this to the CNN reporters.The U.S.had "weaponized " - that Van Buskirk says he was warned by an Air Force colonel, a is to say,put into bombs, ready foruse - four differentgases, friendof his father's: according to army expert Bill Dee, at the Aberdeen Proving "Be sure to take your gas mask. This stuff can really hurt Grounds, north of Baltimore. Dee worked on preparingchem­ you. It can kill you." ical weapons for offensive use during the Vietnam War. One Capt. Mccarley equipped his men with special gas masks. gas, he told CNN, was CS, a white, powdery "tear gas." The called M-l 7s,designed to protect against the lethal gas, he and second was BZ,a slow-acting hallucinogen. The third was VX, other members of the Hatchet Force said. The men also were a nerve gas so potent that a drop of it on the skin can be lethal. issued atropine. The fourth was GB, sarin, which is less deadly than VX. Mccarley said he never considered using lethal gas. But he Sarin attacks the autonomic nervous system, causing retching, acknowledged that besides CS tear gas, .. other gases," includ­ diarrhea,convulsions. and, in high enough concentrations,death. ing sarin,"might have been available," but were "an Air Force A military technical manual says it is a "quick action casualty ordnance, and [in] their arsenal," not SOG's. agent0 that causes cessation of breath. and "death may follow." The antidote for GB is the neurotransmitter atropine. Westerners Spotted Atropine is not an antidote for CS,military experts told CNN. The day beforethe raid,Air Force Master Sgt.James Cathey. SOG reconnaissance leader Mike Sheppard told CNN he did now a Baptist preacher, was hiding on the ground in Laos, some of the advance scouting forTa ilwind. He said,in a phone watching the target village through a telescope. He says he interview: spotted 10 to 15 "longshadowst meaning Westerners, and ,, "[W]e always had atropine .... thought they were defectorssince they were not tied up. Cathey He added: told CNN,on camera: We had gases that were used to immobilize people "I believe that mission was to wipe out those longshadows." .... [l]t was not CS .... Next day, Sept. 11, the SOG Hatchet Force left South CNN: That leaves one weapon left in the arsenal, GB, Vietnam in helicopters. They met heavy enemy fire - an which causes vision problems, nausea, diarrhea, unusual occurrence in these raids. Platoon sergeant Michael respiration problems, then convulsions, sometimes death .... Hagen told CNN on camera: Sheppard: ...there was a gas. And that is exactly how •·we have casualties before we even hit the ground." it was described to us .... Instead of landing near the target camp/village, they had to CNN: And it was used In Tailwind? divert to a more distant landing site, then fight their way back. Sheppard: Yes. This took three days. The SOG men were grateful forthe gas. "We never would have expected to come out [alive]," com­ "Without [it],we would never make it out,0 Hagen says on mando Jimmy Lucas said to the CNN camera. "I didn't!" camera. The night beforetheir attack, a former senior military official Neither,in his mind, was there any doubt what it was: who is intimately familiar with SOG operations and Tailwind, "Nerve gas! Thegovernment didn't want to call it that. They told CNN,that sarin was dropped on the vi11age to soften it up want to call it an incapacitating agent, or some other form.But for the next morning's assault. it was nerve gas!" Oliver asks, in a background interview (meaning the source's The CNN investigative team was told by SOG commandos name will not be revealed): that unusual steps were taken in preparation forTa ilwind. Q: Just one last time, your own personal understanding ·•Both McCarley and Van Buskirk said they were promised continued on following page

Page 6 Pmbe reach the helicopters and escape. Van Buskirk later briefed Gen. Nerve Gas... Creighton Abrams,the top U.S. commander in Vietnam, on the continued from previous page raid. He and Mccarley were given the Silver Star for valor. of Tailwind Is that It was a mission in which CBU-151 Sarin was not technically illegal at the time. The U.S. had GB, was used at least twiceon the village base camp signed,but had not yet ratifiedthe Geneva Protocol banning the and on extraction, and that the target was a group of use of nerve gases. But the Nixon administration's stated poli­ American defectors? A: You are not going to use my name on this, are you? cy was "no first use " of lethal gas in combat. Q: No, sir, you are on background as a senior military The U.S. presence in Laos was illegal; the U.S. had not officer. declared war against it. Operations there were routinely denied. A: Yeah. That's my view. Support for the commandos' claim that sarin was used in Van Buskirk led the attack early next morning."I was on the their rescue comes from pilots who flew the air cover. and offensive. I had already been wounded. I wasn't in a good dropped gases on enemy soldiers during search and rescue mood," he said. It was in these minutes that he killed the two (SAR) missions like the Tailwind evacuation. Americans who'd gone down a hole. Hagen recalled,on-camera: Pilots Describe Gas "The majority of the people that were there were not combat Twodozen pilots were interviewed by CNN. Five said nerve personnel. They were more of a transportation unit. The few gas, or killer gas or GB was available for SARs. Three pilots infantry people that they had, we overran instantly. We basi­ said the available gas of last resort was CBU-15, or sarin. Five cally destroyed everythingthat was there." others said a special sleeping gas or last resort gas that was not McCarley recalled "90-some,up to 100 " dead bodies. tear gas was available. Up to 20 of them looked like Americans, according to Van One pilot said, "[P]robably two canisters were put on each SAR aircraft foreach mission ....The last batch of GB I per­ Buskirk, based on what he was told by the mercenaries. Van f Buskirk said he looked into only one hooch [dwelling]. He told sonally dropped ... was pretty good stuf ...." CNN the dead bodies looked like hamburger meat. None of the CNN: "You said you personally dropped it [GB I?" bodies were brought outside or identified. "I dropped it probably three or fourtimes." Another pilot adds: Exodus Blocked "[W]e would send a paramedic down in a gas mask [during a Turning to leave,the Hatchet Force found themselves cut off rescue operation] ... so if the [American] pilot was incapaci­ from the designated helicopter pick-up site by enemy fire from tated, too, the medic could treat him fast [ with atropine-DZJ. a nearby ridgeline. They called fora gas attack,from Air Force The [enemy] bodies would be laying, flopping there like planes standing by overhead to cover their evacuation. dead bugs." "I said I wanted the baddest of the bad," Van Buskirk told CNN. The pilot adds: Two planes swooped in low and dropped gas near the base of "[W]e did use nerve gas out there in Laos." the ridgeline, between the enemy troops and the landing site. A marine helicopter crew chief on Tailwind. John Snipes. Some gas blew downwind onto the SOG team. told CNN: "It was tasteless,odorless. You could barely see it," recalled "Afterwards, they told us that to use the gas, that they had to Hagen. wake up Pres. Nixon to get him to sign offon it." The enemy, unprepared, lacked gas masks. So, they took a CNN also obtained confidentialinformation far up the chain harder hit. of command that confirms to one degree or another the validi­ "They had thrown up. They were in convulsions on the ty and accuracy of the commandos' allegations ahout sarin. ground. I don't think too many of them got up and walked One of these validating sources is a highly placed intelli­ away," Hagen told CNN on camera. Van Buskirk adds: gence officerwho provided the CNN producer, through a third "I look down into this valley,all I see is bodies. They do not party,with information confirming that CBU-15 was used. fight anymore. They are no longer combatants." This source reviewed documents and assured the intermedi­ In all, six SOG sources told CNN about the use of sarin. ary, who passed the information on, of the accuracy of the The gas,the men say,stopped the enemy,and allowed them to broadcast. The source also reviewed the entire broadcast prior to its being shown and agreed with its conclusions. This source did not provide the information directly to the No Answer from Laos producer; they did meet, however. So CNN can't assess the In mid-August, PROBE queried the Ministry of National precise questions asked of and answered by this source. But. Defense of the Laotian government directly, in based on the intermediary's report, the source's statements lend Viangchan, and also through its embassy in Washington. considerable support to the commandos' and pilots' allegations. We asked if they could confirm, deny, or would comment Some of the men who were on the ground near Chavan. in on the CNN allegations. We followed up by phone to Laos, in September, 1970, had no doubts at all. Says recon­ Washington in September. As of October 1, we have not naissance leader Jay Graves: had a reply. "[T]hey were using nerve gas in that shit and not telling anybody about it!"■

October 1998 Page 7 son they didn't shoot was that they were all dead from the gas." Craig Schmidt: Schmidt denies adamantly that the gas looked or What Gas behaved like the white powder CS tear gas. "It would have been a big mistake to use CS." "[It felt] sticky, wet." Was It? Schmidt claims there was no distinct color, and that it worked immediately. "Profusion from eyes, nose, everything got sticky." This story.7. like- that on Page 1, is based on CNN producers April Oliver "I guarantee you it was not pepper spray ....We knew it as sleep­ and Jack Smiths reporting prior to the cablecast of "Valley of Death" ing gas. We knew its impact was far greater than CS. CS you can Theon June CNN journalistsed. reported that a .. crucial source" was retired chem­ work through. But not this." ical researcher Bill Dee, who worked at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Capt. McCarley: "It didn't really look like anything .... It wasn·1 in Maryland, during the Vietnam War; Aberdeen is a major Army ord­ powder definitely. I mean, it left no residue on you." nance facility for gas weapons. Dee was involved in "weaponizing" These are the views of CNN's expert consultants: chemicals for offensive use during the war. said Oliver and Smith. Matt Meselson. a Harvard biochemist who is an expert on poison He told them only four gases were weaponized in the U.S. arsenal at that time: CS. a tear gas; BZ. a delayed-action hallucinogen; GB. which is sarin; and VX, a deadly nerve gas that is lethal to the touch. Dee said large amounts of GB sarin were weaponized because it responded well antidote atropine and was considered a non-per­ sistent nerve gas. A Pentagon tomanual, the ( 1963). describes these gases: CS - highly Irritating,Military solid, nontoxic Chemistry tear agent and for Chemical training and Agents riot control GB (sarin) - nearly-odorless nerve agent for quick-action casu­ alty use; very rapld[ly causes] cessation of breath and death may follow VX - odorless nerve agent for quick-action casualty use; very rapld[ly) produces casualties when inhaled or absorbed [through skin]. gases used in Southeast Asia: "GB causes vomiting. diarrhea. difficul­ BZ - delayed-action temporarily incapacitating agenL ty breathing, difficulty in vision, muscular twitching. convulsions. par­ [The Pentagon stipulated, in July. that the gas used in the Tailwind tial paralysis and death." evacuation was CS, not GB - ed.] "CS (tear gas) causes a stinging sensation on the skin and it ... Some SOG commandos used terms like "sleeping gas" and "inca­ makes you want to close your eyes. But it doesn't cause convulsions. pacitating gas" in CNN interviews. The producers' Rebuttal says It doesn't cause diarrhea. It doesn't cause all your glands of your auto­ Pentagon chemical weapons expert Gen. Walt Busbee said, on camera, nomic nervous system to secrete. And it certainly doesn't cause that there was no such thing - no gas that would put people to sleep death." so they might wake up later. (GB symptoms are) "you defecate. you urinarc. difficulty in vision. This is what CNN's sources said about the gas, according to the difficulty in breathing. Then convulsions. then paralysis and then Rebuttal: death." Van Buskirk: He was consistent throughout the eight-month report­ "Pure sarin has no odor whatever. And it's a liquid. a more or less ing process, describing the gas alternatively as a "lethal war gas" or colorless liquid that evaporates as water does [it is therefore not per­ sleeping gas. He said on camera "this wasn't a powder, this was a fog. sistent]." This was a liquid. I quickly put my sleeves down." Question: So - a drop won't kill you? "I am vomiting. my nose is running. I've got mucus coming out of "No, not on your skin." my men's noses. They are sick and having a hard time breathing .. .. It was very aggressive." Sarin Use Doubted "Every single American that I can remember was in the latrine on Col. Fred Sidell, M.D., a chemical weapons expert: "Argued it the johns with terrible diarrhea. We were terribly sick." could not have been sarin, because he did not believe sarin was in the­ "I knew this was the best, the worst, the baddest stuff we could use. ater during the Vietnam War. (Since our broadcast. Secretary of I had heard about sleep gas, my understanding of sleep gas was it Defense Melvin Laird has told the AP that sarin was shipped there in makes the enemy go asleep." 1967.)" Mike Hagen: ''They (the Montagnards) were getting sick; they're Re: nerve agent. ..Stuff comes running from your nose. you fall to vomiting, going into convulsions. I could see a lot of the enemy peo­ your knees, you go unconscious and then convulse." And: "Sarin is a ple laying on the ground going into convulsions ....I fell to the nerve agent, it would make you awfully sick." ground, I started going into convulsions." Amy Smithson. of the Henry L. Stimson Center. in Washington. is "To me, it was more of a very, very light, light fog. It was tasteless, frequently used by CNN as an on-camera expert on chemical weapon­ odorless, you could barely see it." ry. She says vomiting, diarrhea and convulsions are "symptoms !hat I would associate with exposure to a nerve agent. not exposure to some­ No Powder Seen thing like tear gas." Her testimony was largely consistent with the Jim Brevelle: "It was a liquidy fog. No question. It hung in there other chemical experts. real good. I recall no powder about it. Most of the Americans had Dr. Julian Robinson, A very highly regarded British chemical their masks. We were maybe 1500 feet from the source of the explo­ weapons expert: He told CNN that CS would look totally different sion." from GB. You would see CS tear gas burning on the battlefield. No "It was incapacitating gas." commando described this to the producers. He also said that GB is "I never could figure out why those guys up on the ridge didn't take dispersed as a liquid with an explosive. and with very little smoke. us out. I know they had big .50-caliber guns. Course maybe the rea- continued on following page

Page 8 Probe PROBE's FindingsOn TailwindStory Based on our review of the fileto date, we think: who were informed, and were ultimately responsible forthe I. "Valley of Death" was and is solid reportage, without Adm. stories - should have been fired, too. Moorer, and even without Lt. Buskirk. 6. Steve Brill failed to deal with the "content" of the story 2. The CNN evidence indicates, but does not prove, that the because he accepted Abrams' findings as given. rather than U.S. used sarin and targeted defectors in Laos. subjecting them to critical analysis. He acknowledged his 3. CNN crucified April Oliver, Jack Smith, and Pamela Hill- friendship with Abrams - who is his magazine's lawyer - the acknowledged best of their best - in kowtowing to the and should have recused himself, and let someone else Pentagon and its supporters. report the story for Brill's Contellf. 4. The Abrams/Kohler Report, which does leave room - 7. CNN, Time, and the other Time-Warner companies have which we have utilized- to re-establish "Valley of Death," demonstrated their inability to critically report Pentagon nonetheless is an embarrassment for Abrams as a First stories. Amendment lawyer, and forCNN. 8. These failures are a significant threat to America's free S. If firings were necessary, the chains of command at CNN press, a pillar of the democratic system of government. and Time, including CNN executives Rick Davis and Tom 9. April Oliver, Jack Smith, and Pamela Hill are owed our Johnson, and Time editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine - thanks fora job well done. -D.R.Z.

A retracted story is like a Portuguese man-of-war. You - a How... journalist - can't touch it without being stung. Your editor continued from page 5 will not accept anything in it as credible. Since the original some of the questioning of him," the NK Report says. publisher and broadcaster have disowned it, it probably could Nevertheless, per the NK critique, the "Valley of Death" not be used in court. Even the tiniest tentacle is toxic. investigation can be written with Van Buskirk as a secondary, Our aim, then, is to put April Oliver, Jack Smith, and Pamela rather than a primary source. Ditto Adm. Moorer. And, this is Hill's piece back on the public record as an exercise in journal­ precisely what we have done, in our main story, starting on P. l: ism criticism. We have taken the CNN and Time reports, now retracted, and For legal reasons, we probably couldn't give them bylines in we have rewritten them. Rewriting one's own or others' stories PROBE for their work. So we've put our own byline on it, to is an exercise that journalists perform every day. More specif­ stand, for the moment, in their place. We have credited them ically, we rewrote them with the NK Report at our elbow- as below our name, to indicate clearly that what follows is only - though it were a critical memo fromour editor- and used it as and strictly - their reporting. guidance. Our rewrite conformsto the strictures set forthin the What is more, it is only their reporting prior to the June 7 A/K Report with regard to what is and what is not credible. The cablecast. We have included no information that arose after story on Page l directly reflects the two retracted media pre­ June 7 (which is in this story and sidebars). Further, we stuck sentations, plus interview material and outtakes in the Briefing to the written record: We have not called or interviewed Oliver. Book (the accuracy of which has not been challenged). Smith, or Hill, so there is no way they could have influencedus Why do this'? personally, as the NK Report alleges they led on their sources. PROBE is a published source, with an ISSN number regis­ Jellyfish Is Beached tered by the Library of Congress. Any journalist. scholar. or Because our reading has convinced us that the story is valid reader who wishes to cite "Valley of Death." for whatever journalism. It is accurate in the use of source materials. It reason, pro or con, can now do so, by citing our Page 1 story. includes serious allegations that should be part of the public We hope this is a service to our colleagues and to the public record, so that others can use and investigate them further. record - forwhich we all work! - D.R. Z.

continued from previous page an exploding munition. This was consistent with the descriptions from the commandos. He No strength of CS tear gas will do the same as GB (sarin). CS tear flatly saidthat CS tear gas is not nauseating nor incapacitating. gas is a relatively tame compound, it only irritates the mucus mem­ "In field trials during this era, the U.S. military discovered you branes. You really cannot get CS up to a high enough concentration would have troubleusing CS in battle conditions because it would be outdoors to provoke serious reactions. You would not have anybody nearly impossible to get it to a useful concentration." dying fromCS - absolutely impossible. Convulsions. and even vom­ To the question "What gases cause you to lose consciousness and iting - outdoors - is unlikely. CS is not a knockout gas. no way. vomit within minutes?" Dr. Robinson said the "description is spot-on You recover immediately from CS in open air. It is quite discernible for nerve gas." as CS by its odor and its white color. Atropine docs no good for CS. Bill Dee: GB is a liquid. CS is a power. GB would create a liquid­ No combination of tear gases cause diarrhea. You can progress as far like fog. CS would create a particle cloud. GB was aerosolized, but it as convulsions after exposure to GB. and still revive. even without an would be released by explosives. Tear gas would not be released by atropine injection. ■

October 1998 Page 9 trol .... It did not go through the JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff]. Oliver: Who did it go through? CIA Role Ignored Moorer: Well, SOG after all was conceived by agents of the Conspicuously absent in the Tailwind story is the CIA ....The CIA and the White House would know about this CIA. Time doesn't mention the agency. CNN mentions it once, before the JCS. quoting Capt. Eugene McCarley saying that Tailwind was sup­ Elsewhere in the interview, Moorer adds: port for a nearby CIA mercenary operation - not a mission to "[Y]ou are now talking about an operation conducted by the kill defectors. Then, in the wrap-up, correspondent Peter Arnett CIA ... not unlike the Bay of Pigs .... Now, generally, they says, in passing, that Adm. Moorer claimed the CIA had "par­ did not refer their specific tactical plans to the JCS. Generally tial responsibility" for Tailwind. we [JCS] would know about the plan .... But you have an The source material in the producers' Rebuttal, however, operation like this, you've got to realize how different it is points a stronger finger at the CIA. Here's what Moorer said, from straightforward military operations, where the chain of on a subject he clearly knows a lot about, in outtakes from an command is absolutely clear, pop, pop. pop. right on down .. interview with CNN's Oliver: Moorer: Now I want you to understand that I didn't really get "[T]he CIA operates [in] a sub rosa [way] different from a heavily involved in Tailwind. I did not have operational con- military operation."•

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