The National Veterans Inquiry was a national-level inquiry into American war crimes in Vietnam. They were held December 1 - December 3, 1970 in Washington, DC.

Origin

In November 1969, after the My Lai massacre became known, the Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...

 Foundation, with antiwar activists Jeremy Rifkin

Jeremy Rifkin

Jeremy Rifkin is an American economist, writer, public speaker, political advisor and activist. He is the founder and president of the Foundation On Economic Trends...

 and lawyer Tod Ensign

Tod Ensign

Tod Ensign is an American veteran's rights lawyer and Director of Citizen Soldier, a non-profit GI and veterans rights advocacy group based in New York City...

, organized the Citizens Commission of Inquiry

Citizens Commission of Inquiry

The Citizens Commission of Inquiry into United States War Crimes in Indochina was founded, according to Michael Uhl, by Ralph Schoenman in November 1969 in New York. Schoenman had earlier worked on Bertrand Russell's unofficial War Crimes Tribunal in Europe. In 1970, Tod Ensign and Jeremy Rifkin,...

 (CCI) in the United States to document American war crimes in Vietnam. The CCI, held their first inquiry in February 1970 in Annapolis, Maryland.

Further inquiries were held in Springfield

Springfield, Massachusetts

Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

; Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

; New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

; Buffalo

Buffalo, New York

Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

; Boston; Minneapolis

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

; Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

; and, Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

. In some cities, the commissions were co-sponsored by antiwar coalitions, in others they were organized independently.

Men who had taken part in the CIA's Phoenix Program

Phoenix Program

The Phoenix Program |phoenix]]) was a controversial counterinsurgency program designed, coordinated, and executed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency , United States special operations forces, and the Republic of Vietnam's security apparatus during the Vietnam War that operated...

described it as a program based on terror, torture, and assassination.