The Plain Dealer
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Here are the My Lai massacre photos as exclusively published in the pages of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer in 1969, which will be highlighted Tuesday as part of Ken Burns' PBS movie series, The Vietnam War.
The photos were taken in March 1968 by combat photographer Ronald Haeberle, a graduate of Fairview Park High School just outside Cleveland.
Haeberle in August 1969 had provided the photos to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Department, but they had not been seen by the public until appearing in The Plain Dealer on Nov. 20, 1969.
Though the Army said 347 people were killed, a memorial in My Lai lists the names of 504 dead.
Scroll below to see the original pages from The Plain Dealer. The text of the story has been republished at this link.
- By Rich Exner, cleveland.com
The Plain Dealer
Plain Dealer front page, Nov. 20,1969
A story explaining the exclusive publication of the My Lai photos dominated the top of the front page of The Plain Dealer on Nov. 20, 1969.
The Plain Dealer
The Plain Dealer prints first photos of Vietnam mass slayings
Page 4 of the B section of The Plain Dealer featured four large photos of the mass slayings in My Lai, Vietnam.
The Plain Dealer
The photographer, Ronald Haeberle
Three more photos and a short profile of the photographer, Ronald Haeberle, were displayed on Page 5 of the B section of The Plain Dealer.
Then 28, and working as an industrial supervisor in downtown Cleveland, Haeberle was a 1960 graduate of Fairview Park High School and a 1969 graduate of Ohio University.
The story said he was drafted in 1966 after three years at OU, and arrived in Vietnam as a combat photographer in December 1967.
The Plain Dealer
Declining Army plea to not publish the photographs
Under the headline, "Don't Use Photos, Army Urges," The Plain Dealer published a request from the Army:
"The position of the Department of Army is that the publication of those photographs will be considered to be prejudicial to the rights of individuals either charged or to be charged with illegal conduct in connection with the alleged murders, whether or not the photographs actually do portray scenes relative to the present inquiry."
"The Army trusts that The Plain Dealer will refrain from publication of material that will prejudice the administration of justice. The Army is prohibited by fair trial considerations from commenting on whether any items including photographs might possibly be evidence."
Plain Dealer Reply:
"Editors of The Plain Dealer are fully conscious of their responsibilities in judging what is proper to publish in connection with alleged criminal actions. This newspaper is determined to protect not only the constitutional rights of individuals but also the constitutional rights of the public."
"It is the judgment of the editors that publication of photographs accompanying this article does not prejudice any individual's rights and further that Plain Dealer readers are entitled to see them for what they are purported to be by the man who gave them to The Plain Dealer for publication: Photographs taken at a village in Vietnam."
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