[KOREAN-WAR-L:11407] Books

[<charlesjh@att.net>]

Jose Castillo's encouragement is much appreciated (although I won't allow myself to be encouraged enough to swamp the list with verbiage; there's plenty in our book, in many, many libraries nationwide).

Joe Brennan's contribution heartens a sometimes despairing soul. This is precisely the kind of clear-eyed questioning and research we had hoped historians -- professional and amateur -- would pursue after our stories ran in 1999-2000. Instead, we've had to deal with unfounded attacks principally inspired by one man on a vendetta, a guy who has cleverly worked the Internet and some news media enough to instill a vague notion out there that AP's work was flawed (beyond the single flaw of Ed Daily, the man, one of 27 ex-GI witnesses, whose information turned out to be second-hand).

When we saw Bateman's book touted on this list, we had to counter at least with a sensible review of our own.

I'll hold back my verbiage regarding Joe's central questions about what evidence exists of mass infiltration by NKPA among refugees. But consider this:

On the very day the NGR killings began, Maj. Gen. Hobart Gay, 1st Cavalry Division commander, told reporters in the rear that he believed MOST of the people in white streaming down the roads were North Korean infiltrators.

Three years later, corresponding with Army historian Appleman, Gay did not cite civilian-clad infiltrators at all in explaining his defeat during those days in late July 1950, but rather ``the thing the Division Commander most feared'' -- sweeps by enemy units around his unguarded flanks and through the gaping hole, seven miles wide, separating the 8th Cavalry's two battalions. (Gay referred to himself in the third person.)

The Army's 1999-2001 No Gun Ri investigation sought assiduously to confirm infiltrators in refugee columns during this period, but largely failed. (Not that it didn't happen: Our book cites an example of it later in the war involving the 7th Cav and Chinese soldiers among NK refugees.)

Speaking of the Army investigation: Joe and everyone else should approach both the Army IG report and Bateman's book with extreme caution. We've documented countless major ... issues? ... in both. Joe himself has just provided one example: The 5th Air Force document showing that it had a policy of strafing refugees, that ``to date we have complied'' with the Army request. This is critically important. Check out the IG report's Chapter 3  ( http://www.army.mil/nogunri/Chapter3.pdf ), specifically its discussion of this Turner Rogers memo on page 98, and you'll see that the Army suppressed the fact that Rogers confirmed the Air Force was ``complying'' and was, indeed, strafing refugees. This is only one of dozens of such deceptions in the IG investigative report, including the suppression of entire critically important documents and testimony, as today's Army sought to absolve the U.S. military of culpability at No Gun Ri.

As for Bateman's book, we found well over 100 egregious errors, major omissions, distortions, wild fantasies and fabrications. It belongs on the science fiction shelf. The guy didn't even explore the bulk of the story, refusing to talk to the Korean survivors, never visiting the site, and then implying that the surviving villagers are a bunch of liars and cheats. The omissions only begin with the above Turner Rogers memo, left out entirely as Bateman insists there was no strafing. Even the Pentagon concluded they were strafed! Then his central ``finding,'' that ``two guerrillas'' had fired from among the refugees, is sourced to a document (not reproduced by him, of course) that we found, when traced, had nothing at all to do with No Gun Ri. (At page 120, for those of you with Bateman's book.) Extreme caution.
	
Finally, Mr. Wallis's posting:
	
He says it's ``unprovable'' that infiltrators were NOT in the refugee columns. But, Mr. Wallis, there's no hard evidence that they WERE. You surely don't mean that U.S. troops had the right to kill as many babies, girls, women as they chose, because a negative couldn't be proven.
	
You also write, ``I have to speak for buddies not here to defend themselves. For whom do you speak?'' That kind of loyalty was one of the first things we learned about (or re-learned) as we worked on No Gun Ri. We'll always admire it. As for whom we speak for: We're journalists, not advocates, except as advocates for the truth. When journalists become spokesmen, we're all in real trouble.
	
Best,
Charlie Hanley