1966 - Bertrand Russell takes the US war against Vietnam to the International War Crimes Tribunal

SIXTY YEARS AGO, ON AUGUST 28, 1966, the U.S. war against Vietnam was
growing bigger and bloodier every day.

On that day, more than 250,000 U.S. troops were stationed in South Vietnam;
for more than four years U.S. forces had sprayed massive amounts of Agent
Orange defoliant on the forests and farmland of Vietnam; for more than 17
months the U.S. had bombed both civilian and military targets in northern
Vietnam.

Hundreds of thousands of people in cities and towns all over both the U.S.
and Europe had participated in massive, peaceful, demonstrations against
the war; on that day Nobel-prize-winning philosopher Bertrand Russell
joined the protests by asking President Lyndon Johnson to testify in his
own defense before an International War Crimes Tribunal in order to rebut
the charge that the U.S. was committing war crimes.

Russell wrote that “Within living memory only the Nazis could be said to
have exceeded in brutality the war waged by your Administration against the
people of Vietnam, and it is because this war is loathed and condemned by
the vast majority of mankind that demands are heard throughout the world
for a formal international tribunal to hear the full evidence."

LBJ ignored Russell’s letter, but after the Tribunal heard the testimony of
more than 35 witnesses, on May 10, 1967, its 16 members unanimously found
that the U.S. had violated international law by committing acts of
aggression against Vietnam, and by bombarding purely civilian targets such
as hospitals, schools, medical establishments and dams, and that the
governments of Australia, New Zealand and South Korea were accomplices in
the illegal aggression against Vietnam.  For more information, see *Against
the Crime of Silence: Proceedings of the Russell International War Crimes
Tribunal* at *https://archive.org/details/againstcrimeofsi0000unse*
<https://archive.org/details/againstcrimeofsi0000unse>


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