Winter Soldier Investigation Examines Computer Warfare

Reports of mechanized and computerized warfare dominated the first day of hearings yesterday as the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) began their second Winter Soldier Investigation of American military policy in Southeast Asia.

Testimony by returned Air Force, Marine and Navy pilots and intelligence officers, and analyses of the air war by Fred Branfman, Daniel Ellsberg '52 and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.) all dealt with what the Veteran described as the widening gap between the reality of America's involvement in Indochina and the picture which the Johnson and Nixon administrations have attempted to impress upon the American public.

"Anyone who thinks that the war in Indochina is winding down is sadly deluding himself. There has been a full-scale war in Laos for the last seven years without any American ground troops being involved," Branfman, who is director of Project Air War, a Washington based research organization, told the audience in Boston's Faneuil Hall.

In his testimony, Kennedy, who is chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Refugees, charged that "This administration, like past administrations, has not had one moment's hesitation in raining death and terror on the people of Indochina.

Refugees

Charging that "civilian casualties for the first six months of 1971 are equal to any six month period prior to 1968," Kennedy accused the Nixon administration of pursuing a bombing policy which is resulting in "hundreds of thousands of refugees each year."

Branfman said the Pentagon has admitted authorizing half a million sorties over Laos since 1964. The major effort of these combat missions, according to Branfman, has been to depopulate sectors controlled by the Pathet Lao. Branfman described three antipersonnel weapons now being used by the U.S. military in this effort--the "pineapple," the "guava," and the flachette.

The "pineapple" is a small round projectile filled with 250 steel pellets which upon detonation are projected in a horizontal pattern for a distance of several hundred yards. One plane normally carries one thousand such "pineapples."

The "guava," a variation of the "pineapple," disperses its steel pellets in a diagonal pattern to facilitate penetration of holes and caves where civilians or military personnel may be seeking refuge.

The flachette is an antipersonnel pellet which expands upon contact. Removing a flachetta from a wounded person inflicts more damage upon the victim than leaving it in would.

New Pellets

Branfman said that there have been unconfirmed reports that fiberglass is now being substituted for the metal pellets, since fiberglass splinters cannot be detected by x-rays.

The Plain of Jars was bombed daily while Branfman was in Laos, but he was unaware of it for several months, even though he lived only 100 miles from the Plain. "What the Plain of Jars symbolizes is that people on the vague frontiers can be vaporized without anyone in this country knowing anything about it," he said.

This theme of "impersonal warfare" was stressed throughout the first day of hearings. Eric Herter, VVAW coordinator for the three-day investigation, said in his opening remarks that "We have been participants in the new forms of war which are to replace the unpopular struggle of infantry patrol against guerilla band. Replace it with a greater atrocity than a hundred My Lais--the systematic destruction of thousands of innocent persons, of entire cultures by an automated electronic and mechanical death machine whose killing will be one-sided, unseen, and universal."

Indefinite War

"This new war will not produce My Lais. It will not produce press exposes, sickening photographs, film footage on the 6 o'clock news, American casualties, veteran's testimony or trials. It can be sustained indefinitely, in the political calculation of the administration, without exciting great opposition or indignation on the part of the American public," Herter said.

Ellsberg described American war policy as that of a "threat" against the North Vietnamese and national liberation forces. "The U.S. threatens to destroy Hanoi, Haiphong and the Red River dykes unless the Vietnamese capitulate. The U.S. then depopulates enormous areas of Laos and Cambodia to show North Vietnam that the American threat is credible," Ellsberg said.

Ellsberg referred to his wife's reaction when she first read the Pentagon Papers: "This is the language of torturers." Ellsberg then recounted the story that when Henry Kissinger '50 is criticized for American bombing policy, he responds by replying, "What you are telling me is that the North Vietnamese are the first people in the history of the world not to have a breaking point."

The investigation continues today and tomorrow at Faneuil Hall. Today's testimony will deal with the economic implications of America's involvement in Indochina, and tomorrow's hearings will discuss the problems facing returning G.I.s