“As a Society, Immersed in Evil”: American Psychiatrists and Violence in the Vietnam War

On March 16, 1968, U.S. soldiers murdered between 350 and 500 unarmed civilians in Quảng Ngãi province in South Vietnam. One of the most infamous acts of violence during the Vietnam War, the My Lai massacre marks the starting point of this project. It stoked anti-war sentiment in an already disaffected American public, but opinions on where responsibility rested varied. Upon the court martial of William Calley, the named perpetrator of the massacre, many called for his head. But others protested his trial, calling instead for the head of the government. American psychiatrists had opinions of their own, and they brought their professional identities to bear on the issue.

This paper will examine how American psychiatrists responded to instances of aberrant violence by U.S. service members during the Vietnam War. It investigates the development of psychiatric defenses of such violence, in both courts of law and public opinion. It explores ethical quandaries of mental health care during episodes of imperial violence and probes the intersection of medicine and politics. And, more broadly, this paper considers the making of U.S. foreign relations on the intimate level—in doctor’s offices, local courtrooms, and, indeed, one’s own mind.

Drawing on the records of activist groups, civilian and military psychiatrists, and Calley’s legal team, this paper will trace the complex affiliations of American psychiatrists during the Vietnam War. It takes as its subjects three cohorts of mental health specialists: those who participated in the Citizens’ Commission of Inquiry on U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam and testified at the 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation; those whom the Army asked to create criteria to screen out potential war criminals after My Lai; and those associated with the Calley trial. How, the paper asks, did these psychiatrists rationalize, condemn, and dismiss the acts of violence put before them?