COURT-MARSHALL: Lieut. Calley was convicted in 1971 for murder at
My Lai in the last high-profile court-martial of an American soldier.
According to a story published in the New York Times, the father of Ivan Frederick, one of the prison guards now charged with Iraqi prisoner abuse, fearful that his son would be a scapegoated, contacted his brother-in law, William Lawson, who contacted “retired Colonel and muckraker David Hackworth,” who put the father in touch with the ‘60 Minutes II’ producers.
The irony, Mr. Lawson said, is that the public spectacle might have been avoided if the military and the federal government had been responsive to his claims that his nephew was simply following orders. Mr. Lawson said he sent letters to 17 members of Congress about the case earlier this year, with virtually no response, and that he ultimately contacted Mr. Hackworth’s Web site out of frustration, leading him to cooperate with a consultant for “60 Minutes II.”
60 Minutes II says: “We heard about someone who was outraged about it and thought that the public should know about it.”
And as has been reported througout the weekend, reports indicate that there’s more to come: “Officials said that the photographs showing psychological or physical abuse numbered in the hundreds, perhaps more than 1,000, with Mr. Rumsfeld hinting Friday that more may come out.”
