Admiral Denies Nerve Gas Confirmation By LAURA MYERS / Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- A top Vietnam-era military officer says he heard rumors, but saw no direct evidence that nerve gas was used in the war, contradicting a report that he had confirmed the deadly chemical was used. "I've never seen any documentation of any operation using (nerve) gas," retired Adm. Thomas Moorer said Tuesday in an interview. Instead, Moorer, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970 to 1974, said he had simply heard unconfirmed stories that the toxic gas sarin had been used by Special Forces units, including in a 1970 operation in Laos that is under review by the Pentagon. "Whether they (Special Forces) had sarin, you can't prove it by me either way," he said. "There were rumors that this gas had been used. But I tell everybody, if they want to know, I don't know that they used it. I don't know that they didn't use it." A CNN-Time Magazine report released over the weekend said Moorer confirmed the use of sarin gas during Operation Tailwind in Laos, in which two U.S. defectors were supposedly killed, and in other missions. The joint report also quoted several Special Forces soldiers who said they were involved in the operation, which it said had been approved by the Nixon White House and the CIA. CNN said Tuesday that it stood by the story. "Two hundred interviews and eight months of research, including the statement of Admiral Moorer, leads us to absolutely believe in the truthfulness of the story," said Steve Haworth, a vice president of news at CNN's Atlanta headquarters. "Our story does not completely and solely depend on Admiral Moorer, but Admiral Moorer certainly does support our story and in no way contradicts our story." CNN said Moorer told its reporters he hadn't been aware of sarin gas use at the time of the war, but was told about it afterward, apparently by Special Forces involved. However, Moorer denied he confirmed the story of sarin gas use. "That's not true. I didn't have enough information to confirm the use," he said. On Monday, Defense Secretary William Cohen ordered an investigation into the allegations, although he noted there was no evidence that sarin gas was ever used in Vietnam or that the few American defectors were targeted during the war. Melvin Laird, a Vietnam-era defense secretary, and retired Gen. William Westmoreland, the commander of U.S. forces for most of the war, have also said they didn't know of any use of sarin gas in the war, although a small amount was shipped to the region in 1967. The use of sarin would have violated U.S. policy, because President Nixon had declared the United States wouldn't use chemical weapons in a "first strike" situation. Cohen orders inquiry of Sarin report By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary William Cohen ordered an investigation Monday into a report that U.S. forces used nerve gas in a raid to kill American defectors during the Vietnam War but said he had no supporting evidence. At the same time, a key source for the joint CNN-Time Magazine report, retired Admiral Thomas Moorer, a Vietnam-era chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, backed away from an account of the alleged use of sarin gas attributed to him. In an interview with Reuters, Moorer said that, contrary to the CNN-Time report, he had no personal knowledge of the use by U.S. forces of sarin, citing instead "rumors." Sarin was the nerve gas used in the March 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway by Aum Shinri Kyo doomsday cult that killed 12 and made about 6,000 people sick. If confirmed, its use would have violated President Richard Nixon's pledge not to be the first to use it in combat. "I'm not aware of the fact that it'd been used, no," Moorer told Reuters. "I've heard rumors that it'd been used." On the other hand, he said he knew sarin had been stockpiled in the military "theater" so it would be available if ordered. In a Sunday episode of a new program called "Newsstand: CNN & Time," Moorer was reported to have said off-camera that the White House national security team of President Richard Nixon had approved the use of sarin and that the Central Intelligence Agency was involved in the operation. However Moorer said in the Reuters interview that he merely surmised that the Nixon national security team would be aware of any such use. He said he was personally unaware of any CIA involvement in the use of sarin. Asked about operations against suspected U.S. defectors, he said: "No, I don't have any specific knowledge about that." He added that he "never received any reports on it." Cohen said Monday that he was ordering the Army, Air Force and Joint Chiefs of Staff to look into the "serious allegation" about the use of sarin. "At this point, I've seen no such information that would support that," he told reporters at the Pentagon. "But you know, it is always possible. So we will continue to look at it, and I will follow up with the information that comes from the service secretaries." In their report, CNN and Time said their research indicated sarin had been used by U.S. forces in some 20 operations in North Vietnam and in the so-called secret war in Laos. One of the missions, dubbed Tailwind, aimed to kill defectors from the U.S. military in a September 1970 jab into Laos, the televised report said. Army Capt. Eugene McCarley, commander of the mission, told the program "Newsstand: CNN & Time" that "upwards of 100" people perished in the raid, including women and children. Platoon leader Lt. Robert Van Buskirk estimated up to 20 American military defectors were killed. But Army and Air Force historians said it was more likely that nonlethal tear gas was used in the Laos operation and that records indicated it was used to divert attention from a CIA operation, not to kill American military defectors. The Center for Defense Information (CDI) called for the watchdog agencies of the Defense Department and the CIA to conduct their own investigations into the allegations. "It would be unacceptable to summarily set out to murder individuals who may or may not have defected voluntarily, but to do so with indiscriminate, inhumane chemical weapons certain to also kill defenseless civilians puts a permanent stain on America's reputation as a humane, law-abiding nation," said CDI founder Rear Adm. Gene La Rocque, a Vietnam veteran. The report that U.S. forces were involved in trying to kill war-time American defectors is not new. In a 1997 book called "Spite House, The Last Secret of the War in Vietnam," author Monika Jensen-Stevenson disclosed a U.S. assassination effort. Jensen-Stevenson's book details the confession of Tom McKenney, a retired Marine colonel who said he directed "an official mission" to kill behind enemy lines Marine Private Robert Garwood. Garwood, who returned to the United States in 1979 after the war ended, was convicted in his absence of collaborating with the enemy after he disappeared in 1965.