Operation Menu - Revelations

Revelations

For four years Menu remained unknown to Congress as a whole although as previously mentioned 5 Congressmen had been informed. That situation changed in December 1972, when Major Knight wrote a letter to Senator William Proxmire (D, WI), asking for "clarification" as to U.S. policy on the bombing of Cambodia. Knight, who had become concerned over the legality of his actions, had complained to his superior officer, Colonel David Patterson. He then received several bad efficiency reports, which ruined his career, and he had been discharged from the Air Force.

Proxmire's further questioning led to hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which eventually demanded that the Department of Defense turn over all records of U.S. air operations in Cambodia. When they arrived, the records did not even mention the Menu strikes. The committee was not convinced and the investigation continued. Less than two weeks later, it opened hearings on the nomination of General George S. Brown for the position of chief of staff of the Air Force. As commander of the Seventh Air Force in South Vietnam, Brown had been privy to Menu and disclosed as much to the committee.

For the next eight days the committee listened to the testimony of administration officials and the Joint Chiefs, who tried to justify their actions. The committee uncovered excuses and deceptions that were perhaps more alarming than those occurring simultaneously in the Watergate hearings. The Menu revelations raised "fundamental questions as to military discipline and honesty, of civilian control over the military and of Congressional effectiveness."< It was basically agreed, both by Congress and concerned military officers, that the deception employed during Menu went beyond covertness. According to Air Force historian Captain Earl H. Tilford: "Deception to fool the enemy was one thing, but lying to Congress and key members of the government, including the chief of staff of the Air Force and the secretary of the Air Force, was something else."