I think there are certain situations and events in human life that are so horrendous and evil that a sensitive human being is left speechless and painfilled to the point of numbness. Such were the actions at Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Dachau, Dresden, Bataan, Sharpeville; now we may add another name in the long list of human brutality of the twentieth century —My Lai.

It is easy to condemn the particular men who perpetrated this crime against God and man, just as it was easy for the Germans after World War II to stand apart from what their government had done, to insist that it was not they who released the gas jets; so too Americans today are horrified and condemn some few men as scapegoats since it is clear that it was not they who gave such orders or who pulled the triggers of the M-16's and the 50-calibers. In both cases, this facile rationale is an escape by a whole people from the responsibility for crimes committed in an atmosphere which, by their tacit or vocal consent, made it more likely that such crimes could be committed.