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Double Deaths. After arresting the Green Berets, the Army, both in Washington and Viet Nam, was being closemouthed. Attorneys for the defense, most notably George Winfred Gregory, 31, from Cheraw, S.C., were speaking loud and clear. Gregory, a boyhood friend of Major Thomas Middleton, one of the accused, flew to Saigon last week to handle the case. Authorities in Washington had not been helpful, groused Gregory. "All they were giving me," he said, "was passport instructions." Gregory claims to have it on good authority that last year some 160 double agents were executed, or ordered executed, by Americans. Because of this, the harsh treatment meted out to the eight baffles observers in Saigon and Congressmen in Washington. Gregory wonders aloud how any of the men can be charged with murder when "any killing that might have been done was in the carrying out of a lawful order."
Intensive Heat. At week's end the Army was still keeping silent and acting tough. Colonel Robert Rheault, a much-decorated West Pointer who commanded all Special Forces in Viet Nam, was being held in a house trailer. The seven other accused Green Berets were confined in small, metal-roofed rooms at the infamous Long Binh jail, noted for riots and p.o.w.-like conditions. There they were allowed only one exercise period a day and subjected to repeated interrogation. At least one officer has gone through several "strip searches," in which the prisoner is required to take off all his clothes for minute examination.
Heat of such intensity can come from only one source in Viet Nam—General Creighton Abrams, the U.S. commander. Why was Abrams reacting so strongly? Saigon's rumor mills have ground out at least three plausible theories: 1) The killing inflamed long-smoldering resentment between the military and the Central Intelligence Agency, with the Green Berets caught in the middle. It is said that Abrams made an issue of the case as a warning to the CIA to stop using the Special Forces to do its dirty work. 2) The victim was an extremely important agent, possibly a special emissary from President Thieu to Hanoi or a North Vietnamese courier who had already been granted immunity. This would explain the CIA's belated effort to rescind its execution order. It would also explain the trial of the Green Berets as a way for the U.S. to say, in effect: "We are sorry your man got rubbed out." 3) Perhaps most likely, the whole affair is a colossal military snafu. According to this theory, Abrams might have been annoyed at news of the killing, and told aides in an offhand manner, "We've got to clean those guys up." Overzealous subordinates, misinterpreting his remark, then might have ordered the arrests. Before the imprisoned men could be sprung and the affair hushed up, Lawyer Gregory had heard from Middleton and brought the case into the open.
Whatever the truth, it is now impossible for the Army to drop the affair quietly. There are doubts, however, that a court-martial would unearth the real story—or that a court-martial will in fact be held.