Rabbi Maurico N. Eisendrath, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, declared in a report yesterday to the Reform organization’s board of trustees that he was shocked at witnessing “a startling number of Americans spontaneously turn a self-confessed murderer of unarmed women, men and children into a national hero.” Referring to Lt. William L. Calley, who was recently convicted for the murder of at least 22 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai in 1968. Rabbi Eisendrath stated: “It is had enough that we have turned God’s good earth and the fulness thereof into an open garbage pit, but when the larger part of a great nation no longer can or will distinguish between so clear-cut a case of good and evil, that is spiritual pollution in its terminal form.”
Rabbi Eisendrath said he was ashamed “that the crimes committed by Lt. Calley were committed in the name of America,” and criticized President Nixon for “intervention…in such a manner as to prejudice the appeal procedure.” Nixon has announced that under his Presidential authority he will decide the final disposition of the Calley case. “What perversion of moral leadership.” Rabbi Eisendrath asked, “led to the spectacle of an American President playing to public opinion—while piously rejecting public opinion on the war itself–and degrading the legal process by personal intervention at a time and in such a manner as to surely prejudice justice?” The Reform leader called on Nixon to appoint a committee to clarify ethical and legal guidelines in war, and he urged the military authorities to punish other members of the Armed Forces who abrogate the military code of justice, the Geneva Convention and the Nuremberg guidelines. Finally, Rabbi Eisendrath called for an end to “this morally cancerous war.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
