U.S. used nerve gas during Vietnam War - report
     07-JUN-98

     WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military used lethal nerve gas
     during the Vietnam War, targeting American defectors in a village
     base camp in Laos, CNN and Time magazine said in a joint report
     Sunday.

     Adm. Thomas Moorer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
     confirmed that sarin nerve gas was used in 1970 in a secret raid
     into Laos called Operation Tailwind, according to the report aired
     on CNN Sunday.

     Capt. Eugene McCarley, commander of the mission, told the program
     ``Newsstand: CNN & Time'' that ``upwards of 100'' people perished
     in the raid, including women and children. Platoon leader Lt.
     Robert Van Buskirk estimated up to 20 American military defectors
     were killed.

     The Pentagon said Sunday its own research did not indicate that
     nerve gas was used during the Vietnam War.

     ``We've haven't seen the piece yet, however we've researched this
     kind of thing and there's nothing to lead us to believe that nerve
     gas was used in Vietnam or Laos,'' said Defense Department
     spokesman Jim Turner.

     The report, which also appears in the issue of Time on sale
     Monday, said that the United States has not before admitted to
     using sarin in combat. Sarin is the gas used in a 1995 Tokyo
     subway attack that killed 12 people and made thousands ill.

     Moorer told the program the White House national security team of
     President Richard Nixon approved use of the nerve gas and the CIA
     had partial responsibility for the operation. He said he was
     speaking out now because of his respect for history.

     The report quoted military officials and soldiers who took part in
     the raids as saying that the sarin gas was dropped on more than 20
     missions in Laos and North Vietnam.

     The year of the Tailwind mission, Nixon had pledged a no-first-use
     policy on nerve gas as part of his commitment to the Geneva
     Protocol limiting chemical weapons use, but the Senate had not yet
     ratified the chemical weapons treaty.

     Van Buskirk told CNN & Time he had orders to kill everyone,
     including U.S. defectors.

     ``It was pretty well understand that if you came across a
     defector, and could prove it to yourself beyond a reasonable
     doubt, do it. Under any circumstance, kill them,'' he said. ``It
     wasn't about bringing them back, it was to kill them.''

     Soldiers who took part in the secret September 1970 Tailwind
     mission -- about 60 miles deep into Laos -- were in the Studies
     and Observations Group, SOG, which mounted operations against
     unusual targets, using unusual weapons.

     Van Buskirk said an Air Force colonel warned him about the lethal
     gas before the mission and urged him to be sure that his soldiers
     took their M-17 gas masks, designed to protect against nerve gas.
     The SOG commandos were also issued atropine, a nerve gas antidote,
     CNN & Time reported.

     One of the soldiers on the mission, Jim Cathey, said he spent five
     hours closely observing the village base camp and saw 10 to 15
     Caucasians.

     ``I believe that there were American defectors in that group of
     people in that village, because there was no ... sign of any kind
     of restraint,'' he said. ``In retrospect I believe that mission
     was to wipe out those longshadows,'' as defectors were known since
     they were taller than Laotians and Vietnamese.

     In an off-camera interview Moorer acknowledged that Tailwind's
     target was the defectors in the village, CNN & Time said. Although
     he would give no firm estimate, Moorer indicated scores of U.S.
     military had defected during the war.

     In the Tailwind raid, U.S. planes passed over the village base
     camp and dropped the deadly nerve gas. SOG commandos entered the
     camp the next morning, and according to Mike Hagen, who was a
     platoon sergeant, ``basically destroyed everything there.''

     ^REUTERS@