Attitudes toward my lai and obedience to orders: An australian survey

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A survey of public attitudes relating to the My Lai Massacre and the trial of Lieutenant William Calley Jr. was conducted in Sydney in March‐April 1971. Opinions on two specific issues were examined: whether soldiers who killed civilians at My Lai should be punished and what the respondent would do if he were a soldier in Vietnam ordered to shoot unarmed civilians. Responses to the two questions were compared with opinions expressed by a national sample of Americans. Fifty‐nine per cent of the Sydney sample believed that the My Lai soldiers should be let off and 30 per cent reported they would shoot civilians if ordered to do so. The individual who endorsed the “follow orders” ideology was more likely to be male, older, less well educated, at the lower end of the economic scale, an ex‐serviceman, politically conservative and authoritarian in personality.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: