Lonnie Franks’ letter to Harold Hughes revealed unauthorized airstrikes over North Vietnam in 1972
By Jerry Harrington
It’s said the first casualty of war is truth. This tale affirms that.
Sgt. Lonnie Franks, circa 1970s. Photo courtesy of Lonnie Franks
On Feb. 25, 1972, Cedar Rapids native Sgt. Lonnie D. Franks, a 23-year-old United States Air Force intelligence specialist based at the Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand, dropped a one-page letter into a mailbox. It was addressed to U.S. Sen. Harold Hughes of Iowa. When the letter arrived in the senator’s Washington, D.C., office days later, it was obvious this was not just another constituent complaint.
The letter contained a startling revelation from Franks that he had been ordered by superiors to falsify documents on U.S. bombing of North Vietnam. His letter asked Hughes, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, if “this falsification of classified documents is legal and proper.”
Within days, the letter’s impact rippled through the U.S. military, leading to the forced retirement of a four-star general and later igniting an explosive series of Senate hearings in the nation’s capital. The issue struck directly at the question of civilian control over the military and the reliability of carrying out policy commands.
And it all began with this single letter from an Iowan asking another Iowan a simple question about honesty, integrity and truth.
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