JOHNSON'S DIRTY WAR IN VIETNAM
Johnson took his escalation of the war. in Vietnam up another notch July 7 with the announcement that another 8 » 000 troops are to be landed, bringing the. total. to around 80,000... © .
Of the horror stories. pouring out of Vietnam, a particularly chilling admission came from Jack Langguth July 6 in a Saigon dispatch to the New York Times:
"One American helicopter crewman returned to his base in the central highlands last week without a fierce young prisoner entrusted to him.
"He told friends that he had become enfuriated by the youth and had pushed him out of the helicopter at about 1,000 feet.
‘When a superior warned him that he would be courtmartialed, the crewman changed his story. He said that the prisoner a attacked him and had fallen accidentally."
Of more concern to American commanders than such "isolated" incidents, continues Langguth, has been the decision to bomb heavily in South Vietnam:
"tT don't like to hit a village,' one American pilot who had flown more than 100 missions said recently... 'You know you're hit- | ting women and children too. But you've got to decide that your ae cause is noble and that the- work has to ‘be done." |
-46
_ “NOT