Galley Paroled

The man who came to symbolize much that went wrong with the long and searing U.S. involvement in Viet Nam was set free last week. Former Army Lieutenant William L. Calley, accused of murdering at least 22 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai in 1968, was released in a complex interplay of military and civil justice. He had served 40 months of his ten-year sentence, 35 months of it rather comfortably confined to his own living quarters.

In the courts-martial growing out of what happened at My Lai, Calley was the only man convicted of any crime in the massacre. His attorneys appealed that verdict in the civil courts, and last September a federal judge overruled the Army and threw out Calley's conviction, partly on the grounds that pretrial publicity had prejudiced his case. That set the stage for last week's double denouement: the civil courts released Calley pending the Army's appeal to uphold the conviction, and Army Secretary Howard H. Callaway paroled Calley, since he had served with good behavior a third of his sentence.

The seemingly contradictory Army actions reflect two realities. The military wants to put Viet Nam behind it, particularly the case of Calley. But it is concerned about the effect on military discipline of the precedent that civil courts may reverse court-martial judgments. Thus the Army will continue to appeal the overturning of Calley's conviction, even though Calley's freedom is now no longer an issue.

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