4 - The Black Vault

7. -V-W~ .
THE BDM CORPORATION
and other key personnel should have been the first to
know of any act3 or incidents involving US or Vietnamese
personnel.
This would seem to be a clear ;-efutatinn from a source in a position
to know, of claims regarding "war crimes and atrocities." However,
Major Hays Parks, USMC, an expert on the laws of war notes:
Only Article 3, com-on to all four of the 1949 Geneva
Conventions, anticipated the then-developing problem wars
of a noninternational character fought by or against
unconventional forces. The resultant problem may be
illustrated by the incident at My Lai wnere U.S. Army
Forces on 16 March 1968 assembled and executeu several
hundred unarmed, unresiscing men, women, and children.
Despite the heinousness of the offense there was no
violation of the Geneva Conventions inasmuch as the
victims were citizens of the host country and U.S. Forces
were present as an ally rather than as an occupying
power.
If even the worse assessment possible of the My Lai incident could not
be construed as a contravention of the Geneva Accords, the IG finding
in 1970 is certainly less significant that it at first seems. To
avoid misleading information, some indication of the limitations of
such measures as the Accords in the assessment of atrocities could
valuably be included in such a statement. This extreme reticence
regarding various 'problems' in Vietnam only serves to highlight the
significance of the findings that the IG does bring out. See Major W.
Hays Parks, "The 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Convention of 1949,"
in Naval War College Review, Fall 1978, p. 18,
24. M.A.C.V. inspector General History 1964-1972, p. 30.
25. See chapter 3 for a discussion of corruption in the context of Leadership
and Ethics.
26. M.A.C.V. I.G. History, pp. 56-7.
27. MACIG Staffing Develepment Study, January 1972.
28. The M.A.C.V. I.G. Hiscr" cites other reasons as well for this increase:
a. Personnel turbulence resulting from the rapid increase in troop
strengths.
b. More freqLent visits to ;--its by MACV IG inspection teams threio'hout
the Corps Tactical Zones. [
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