User:Cjhanley/Sahr Conway-Lanz excerpt

Here’s the operative excerpt (pages 58-62) from Sahr Conway-Lanz’s article “Beyond No Gun Ri,” in the Journal of Diplomatic History, January 2005, when he reported his discovery of the Muccio letter. One important note: His third paragraph on page 58 and footnote on page 59 suggest the Army investigators of 1999-2000 did not examine the relevant State Dept. collection of documents, and so missed Muccio. That’s incorrect: Limiting himself to paper files, Conway-Lanz missed the fact, as shown in the Army report’s appendix listing reviewed materials, that the investigators did examine the National Archives microfilm roll that bore the letter. (AP researcher Randy Herschaft didn't miss that fact.) By 2007, the U.S. had to admit to South Korea that the Army deliberately omitted the letter from its No Gun Ri report. Hanley.

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Beyond No Gun Ri : 58

The Pentagon investigation, however, missed an important piece of evi- dence, a letter between the U.S. ambassador to Korea and the State Depart- ment. This letter substantiates a dramatically different interpretation of the question of the existence of American orders to shoot civilians. A formal written order authorizing the use of lethal force to control refugees may not have existed, precisely because harming civilians was a sensitive subject. Instead, a widespread understanding that firing on civilians might be required to enforce the explicit refugee control policy stretched from frontline soldiers and officers to the highest levels of the Eighth Army.

The Pentagon report's claim that this understanding was wrongheaded and did not reflect the thinking of top Eighth Army officers rests on its interpreta- tion of the meeting of Eighth Army staff and South Korean officials on the evening of 25 July. It takes this meeting as the occasion at which refugee control policy was "clarified," and the shooting of civilians was not authorized. As the Pentagon report pointed out, the written formal policy sent to American units the next morning did not explicitly authorize them to fire on refugees. It only forbade refugees from crossing battle lines. Having a better idea of what was discussed at the 25 July meeting could reveal if there had been a general un- written understanding even among the top American officers formulating the refugee control policy that lethal force might be used as a last resort against civilians to control their movements. The Defense Department report offered few details about this meeting beyond which organizations participated and the formal guidance that was drafted as a result of the meeting.

But there exists an account of the meeting that the Pentagon investigation and other inquiries have missed. (CJH: Again, as noted in the intro above, they did NOT miss the Muccio letter.) On 26 July, the American ambassador to Korea, John J. Muccio, sent a letter to Dean Rusk, the assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, about the refugee problem in Korea. The letter described the problem as having developed "a serious and even critical military nature." The letter told Rusk that the ambassador was writing because the military was "necessarily" making decisions about the problem, and the implementation of these decisions had the possibility of repercussions in the United States. The letter described the military problems of clogged roads and infiltration that the movements of refugees caused. It then reported to Rusk that a meeting had been arranged by request of Eighth Army headquarters at the office of the South Korean home minister on the evening of 25 July to address this problem. The

'9. Ibid., x-xiii, xv, 26-27, ,85-9°.

Beyond No Gun Ri : 59

letter said that the administration and personnel section (G-1), the intelligence section (G-2), the provost marshall, and the Counter-Intelligence Corps of the Eighth Army staff were represented at the meeting along with the American embassy, the ROK Home and Social Affairs ministries, and the director of the National Police.

Muccio reported to Rusk his impression of the decisions made at the meeting, the same meeting that the Pentagon report claimed had clarified that refugees would not be shot. Muccio's letter listed the meeting's decisions, and the first read: "Leaflet drops will be made north of U.S. lines warning the people not to proceed south, that they risk being fired upon if they do so. If refugees do appear from north of U.S. lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot." The letter also reported that refugees would be warned mat no group could move south unless so ordered and then only under police control. All movement of Korean civilians had to end at sunset or those moving would "risk being shot when dark comes." Muccio's impression of the meeting may have been mistaken, and it is not clear from the letter whether Muccio himself attended the meeting or if he had received a report from another embassy officer, but obviously the meeting did not clarify for the American embassy that refugees were not to be shot. Some- thing was said at the meeting that suggested to the embassy representative that there existed an understanding that civilians who approached American front- line positions would be shot.20

With this additional piece of evidence, the Pentagon report's interpretation becomes difficult to sustain. Instead of isolated misunderstandings, the com- munications log entry of the 8th Cavalry and the claims by interviewed veter- ans that "orders" to shoot advancing refugees existed appear to be evidence that the understanding on shooting refugees was widespread across units and resided all the way up and down the chain of command from the Eighth Army head- quarters to soldiers on the front lines. Other evidence that the Pentagon inves- tigation uncovered lends support to the interpretation that this understanding was widespread across units. The 25th Infantry Division's war diary for 24 July addressing the problem of infiltration said, "Native personnel in the combat zone must be considered hostile until proven friendly." A directive dated 27 July from the division's headquarters to its units' commanders and staff sections stated that the South Korean police had removed all civilians from an area in

20. Muccio to Rusk, 26 July 1950, Box 4266, Central Decimal Files 1950-54, Record Group 59 (hereafter RG), National Archives, College Park, MD (hereafter NA). The letter resides in a collection of State Department documents on the Korean War that, according to the No Gun Ri Review's appendix on records research, the Pentagon investigation did not examine. It is unlikely that representatives of the South Korean government would have objected to talk of harsh actions against their own citizens at this meeting. On 25 July, the Associated Press reported that the government had announced it would execute all civilians found "making enemy-like action" in the war zone that included leaving their houses at any time except during a designated daily two-hour period. New York Times, 26 July 1950.

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front of the division's lines. As a consequence, it directed, "All civilians seen in this area are to be considered as enemy and action taken accordingly." The divi- sion's war diary for the same day said that the division commander General William B. Kean had ordered commanders at every level to stop any Korean civilians from moving into their areas. Soldiers were to consider everyone dressed as civilians moving within the combat zone as an enemy. What treat- ment as an enemy entailed was obvious to observers. The Associated Press reported on 27 July: "All Korean civilians have been ordered out of the fight- ing zone southeast of Taejon. In an area once cleared of civilians, anyone in civilian clothing may be shot."" According to the division's daily journal for 26 July, General Kean directed his staff to notify the local police that "all civilians moving around in combat zone will be considered as unfriendly and shot."22

Reports also exist of the commanding generals of the two other army divi- sions fighting in Korea ordering their soldiers to shoot civilians during the summer retreat. O. H. P. King, a journalist for the Associated Press who had covered the Korean War, recalled in his memoirs that the commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, General Hobert Gay, had resorted to drastic measures to stop infiltration during the summer retreat. Writing ten years after the war, King remembered the general ordering that after a specified period, any Koreans discovered in the area between UN lines and the enemy would be con- sidered hostile and shot on sight. The warning to civilians was widely circu- lated, King claimed.23 The official army history of the Korean War recorded that General John H. Church of the 24th Infantry Division gave similar orders in his area of operations. He demanded that all civilians evacuate a zone five miles deep in front of the division. He warned the civilians that if they failed to do so, his troops might shoot them on sight as enemies.24

Another piece of evidence, which the Pentagon report did not utilize and that supports the notion of a widespread understanding in the army that refugees might be shot, comes from a book published by the Department of the Army in 1952. The army's Office of the Chief of Military History put together a short volume describing the first six months of the Korean War. The book explained how American soldiers dealt with the problem of infiltration in the summer of 1950. It noted that the "passage of civilian hordes through combat areas troubled the Americans, who shrank from shooting at them but who knew that their appearance often implied that the enemy was lurking in the vicinity." The official history continued, "Eventually, it was decided to shoot anyone who

21. No Gun Ri Review, 35, 37.

22. Journal, HQ 25th Infantry Division, 26 July 1950, at http://www.henryholt.coml nogunri/docurnents.htm.

23. O. H. P. King, Tail of the Paper Tiger (Caldwell, ID, 1961), 358-59.

24. Roy Appleman, South to the Naktong, North to the Yai» (Washington, DC, 1961), 291.

Beyond No Gun Ri : 6r

moved at night." Refugee movements, it concluded, were allowed during the day when screening the Koreans was easier.25 This description may not have been an entirely accurate depiction of the refugee control policy in Korea, but it did demonstrate that even the Office of the Chief of Military History in Washington believed lethal force had been authorized to control the move- ments of civilians. Any servicemen who made decisions to fire on Korean refugees were hardly isolated exceptions in believing that army policy expected them to take such extreme measures.

This widespread acceptance of such harsh tactics appears less surprising when one considers the limited means that American soldiers possessed for enforcing the order to halt civilian movements. The Eighth Army policy charged South Korean police with ensuring that civilians did not cross Ameri- can battle lines, but when refugees did approach American positions unaccom- panied by police-as apparently they did at least in the case of the No Gun Ri killings-the frontline soldiers had limited options. The soldiers were few in number, and they were not equipped to control crowds with tear gas or batons. They could shout or wave off approaching civilians; they could fire warning shots; and they could fire at the refugees.

A number of circumstances can explain why the Department of Defense investigation did not unearth further evidence of a formal written policy to shoot refugees as a last resort in controlling their movements. The under- standing was most likely passed by word of mouth. Lawrence Levine, who was at No Gun Ri as the chief of radios in the headquarters company of the 2nd Bat- talion of the 7th Cavalry, told reporters after the Pentagon investigation that orders and instructions were often not written down. Levine was convinced that his battalion had received orders to shoot civilians.26

The sensitive nature of any instruction to shoot refugees may have created for American officers and soldiers an added incentive to neglect record-keeping concerning it. American servicemen in Korea realized that such a policy was a harsh and repulsive tactic. Plenty of evidence reflected their disquiet over the notion. Ambassador Muccio understood the sensitivity of the subject and its "possibility of repercussions." The 8th Cavalry's log entry also displayed some ambivalence toward firing upon civilians with its reference to using discretion in the case of women and children. An entry in the 1st Cavalry Division's war diary for 24 july reflected the reluctance to shoot refugees. It read: "The control of refugees presented a difficult problem. No one desired to shoot innocent people, but many of the innocent looking refugees dressed in the traditional white clothes of the Koreans turned out to be North Korean soldiers trans- porting ammunition and heavy weapons in farm wagons and carrying military equipment in packs on their backs. They were observed many times changing

25. Korea-1950 (Washington, DC, 1952),82.

26. Washington Post, 6 December 2000.

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from uniforms to civilian clothing and back into uniform. There were so many refugees that it was impossible to screen and search them a11."27

Taken in view of the sensitivity of the issue, it is rather startling that the 8th Cavalry headquarters recorded the understanding in their communication logs and unsurprising that more written records of it do not remain. It is also less than surprising that more veterans interviewed for the Pentagon's investigation did not attest to an understanding about shooting civilians as a last resort nor to an explicit order to do so. Not only had fifty years elapsed in which unpleas- ant memories could have faded, but the initial Associated Press report of the No Gun Ri killings set the stakes rather high when it claimed that experts in international law considered orders to shoot civilians a war crime. Some veter- ans might have been concerned about smearing the army or making themselves or other veterans vulnerable to prosecution or stigmatization due to their testimony.28

Further investigation by the Associated Press reporters who broke the No Gun Ri story has uncovered evidence that American commanders gave direct orders to fire upon refugees later in the summer of 1950, as the UN forces fought along the Naktong River in southeastern Korea. A communications log from a battalion of the 1st Cavalry Division recorded an officer's 9 August order to "shoot all refugees coming across the river,"29 In late August, the division commander General Gay ordered his artillery to fire on all refugees, according to unit journals." Also during the fighting at the Naktong, the journal of the 35th Regiment of the 25th Infantry Division stated, "Any refugees approach- ing our defensive position will be considered to be En(emy) and will be dis- perwde(sic) by all available(sic) fires including Art(liller)y."31 By August, recording orders to shoot refugees was becoming more routine.

27. No Gun Ri Review, 37.

28. Washington Post, 30 September 1999.

29. Communications log, rst Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, rst Cavalry Division, 9 August 1950, at http://www.henryholt.comlnogunri/documents.htm.

30. Journal, rst Cavalry Division Artillery Command, 29 August 1950, at http://www. henryholt.comlnogunri/documents.htm; journal, HQ 61st Field Artillery Battalion, 29 August 1950, at http://www.henryholt.comlnogunri/docurnents.htm.

31. Journal, 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, 17 August 1950, at http://www.henryholt.comlnogunrildocuments.htm.