Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam

thanks for filming rainy night it's good to see you all a lot of old friends in the audience and new ones too I'm sure well we're going to talk about the life and career of general westmoreland so I feel budged to warn you at the outset this is not a happy story but I think it is an important one maybe even an essential one my contention is that in unless and until we understand William child's Westmoreland will never fully understand what happened to us in Vietnam or why and Westmoreland's is overwhelmingly of Vietnam story his involvement in the Vietnam War was the defining aspect of his life he himself perceived that and was driven through the rest of his days to characterize explain rationalize and defend that role his memoirs reflect the fixation in a long career totaling 36 years as an officer in a string of postings to increasingly important assignments the four years he spent commanding American forces in Vietnam and aftermath constitute virtually the entirety of his account all the rest a meager tenth understanding Westmoreland is not easy he turns out to be a surprisingly complex man fueled by ambition driving himself relentlessly of impressive military mean energetic and effective at self-promotion and skillful at cultic cultivating influential sponsors from his earliest days of service he led his contemporaries was admired and advanced by his seniors and progressed rapidly upward but few who served with him would claim they really knew this distant and difficult man general Walter Kerwin knowns many of those present tonight was Westmoreland chief of staff for over a year in Vietnam and he recalled that although they worked very closely together seeing each other many times during the day and going over to his quarters with things to be dealt with at night he and Westmoreland never had a personal relationship said general Kerwin who was then a two-star general and in fact he said they never even had a normal conversation as two colleagues ordinarily would you couldn't get to him friendship and that kind of thing Kerwin remembered Westmoreland had an extraordinary capacity for polarizing the views of those who encountered him few remained indifferent his executive officer when Westmoreland was army chief of staff described him as the most gracious and gentlemanly person with whom I ever served and it an executive officer to Westmoreland in Vietnam an officer of another service regarded him as the only man he ever met to whom the term great could be applied there were others though many others who had a darker view among the most prominent was General Harold K Johnson a man of surpassing decency and goodwill I don't happen to be a fan of general Westmoreland's said Johnson I don't think I ever was and I certainly didn't become one as a result of the Vietnam War or later during his tenure as chief of staff of the army and a general officer of another service who served closely with Westmoreland in Vietnam described him as awed by his own magnificence Westmoreland was born and raised in semi-rural South Carolina near Spartanburg where his father was manager of a textile mill an Eagle Scout at age 15 president of his high school senior class first captain at West Point Westmoreland was encouraged from his earliest days to think of himself as specially gifted and specially privileged his father wrote to Westmoreland during his plea bureau at West Point and he said you do not know how happy and proud it makes us all to know that you are making good even the small boys and the Negroes are interested and proud of it and then he wrote to him not long later and said when you need anything write me and I will send it to you there is nothing too good for you and a subsequent letter still during Westmoreland's plea beer at West Point went even further the people here said his father the people here white and black think you are about the biggest man in the country Roosevelt has no rank at all compared to you they really believe you will be President of the US someday and talk this among themselves Westmoreland entered World War two as commander of an Artillery Battalion in the ninth in free division taking his unit into combat in North Africa there they performed with distinction earning a Presidential Unit Citation subsequently in Sicily Westmoreland served temporarily under then brigadier general Maxwell Taylor division artillery commander of the 82nd Airborne Division an association that would be extremely important to Westmoreland throughout the remainder of his career for the rest of World War two Westmoreland was a staff officer when the fighting was over although he was an artery officer he was given command of an infantry regiments for six months in the Army of Occupation back in the United States Westmoreland was able to get an assignment to the 82nd Airborne Division where after attending jump school he had a year in command of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment and then three years as division chief of staff of the 82nd Airborne late in the Korean War Westmoreland took command of the 187th airborne regimental combat team a unit that constituted the theater reserved and consequently was stationed in Japan and periodically deployed to Korea Westmoreland commanded the outfit for 15 months of which nine months were spent in Japan where after he was promoted to Brigadier General he was able to live with his wife kitsy and their young first child and six months in Korea during one such Korean deployment when they were not in combat Westmoreland who desired to qualify the for the master parachutist badge made 13 jumps in one day after the war and some scheming on Westmoreland Park the Koreans awarded the 187th their Presidential Unit Citation now brigadier general Westmoreland experienced his first Pentagon duty with an assignment in personality I had not served there earlier he said in an oral history and I didn't want to serve there but then Maxwell Taylor became army chief of staff and rescued westmoreland from the personnel policy morass making him his secretary of the General Staff two years later having in the meantime been promoted to two-star rank Westmoreland was rewarded by Taylor with command of the 101st Airborne Division things moved quickly for him after that two years as division commander were followed by a three-year assignment as superintendent of the United States military at Qwest Academy at West Point and then promotion to lieutenant general basically he was sheep dipped just six months in command of the 18th Airborne Corps and the three-star promotion set him up for what was to come Westmoreland was sent to Vietnam in January 1964 as deputy to General Paul Harkins then in June 1964 he succeeded him as commander US military assistance command Vietnam the start of a four-year stint in that post beginning in the spring of 1965 the United States began deploying ground forces to Vietnam under Westmoreland who had decided to conduct a war of attrition these forces concentrated almost entirely on large unit search-and-destroy operations as they were called conducted primarily in the deep jungle fixated on these large unit operations called by many the war of the big battalions Westmoreland largely ignored other key responsibilities most importantly upgrading South Vietnam's armed forces and dealing with pacification his way of war did nothing to affect the situation in South Vietnam's Hamlet's and villages where the enemy's covert infrastructure was left free to continue using terror and coercion to dominate the rural populace meanwhile Westmoreland deprived the South Vietnamese of modern weaponry giving you US and other allied forces priority four issue of the new m16 rifle and other advanced military wherewithal the South Vietnamese thus went for years equipped with cast-off World War two vintage us equipment while being outgunned by the communists who were provided the ak-47 assault rifle one of the great empty weapons of all time and other advanced equipment by their backers it's very important to know the nests that next thing I'm going to tell you and a lot of people don't know it and that is that Westmoreland is commander of US forces in Vietnam was left to devise his own approach to conduct of the war the conventional the conventional views of the war even now are that it was micro managed from Washington there are many stories of how at Lyndon Johnson's Tuesday lunches in the White House he and other mostly civilian top officials would even select and approve individual bombing targets in North Vietnam those stories are true but they had to do with actions taken outside South Vietnam within South Vietnam the u.s. commander had very wide latitude in deciding how to fight the war this was true for Westmoreland and equally true for his eventual successor this was not general booth Palmer jr. concluded a good thing there were many weaknesses he weaknesses said Palmer in this strategy which in numerous interrelated ways played into the hands of the enemy for one he said chasing around the countryside was futile general Philip Davidson who served as Westmoreland's chief intelligence officer said that Westmoreland's interest always lay in the Big Unit said Davidson pacification board him and said Davidson the Search and Destroy operations favored by Westmoreland complet 'el in providing the secure environment which pacification required the measure of merit in a war of attrition was body count Westmoreland's belief was that if he could kill enough of the enemy they would lose hearts Easter aggression go back to North Vietnam and the South would be saved Westmoreland unfortunately underestimated the enemy staying power instead of giving up where they suffered grievous casualties they proved willing to absorb these and still keep fighting making up the losses time after time and thus the progress West more unclaimed in racking up huge body counts did nothing to win the world the enemy simply kept sending more and more replacements to make up his losses Westmoreland was on a treadmill Westmoreland also overestimated the American people's patience and tolerance of friendly losses on a visit to South Vietnam senator Hollings from Westmoreland's home state of South Carolina was told by Westmoreland we're killing these people the enemy at a ratio of ten to one said Hollings Westie the American people don't care about the 10 they care about the one but Westmoreland never got it Westmoreland's responds to any problem was to request more troops the result was build up of a US contingent of ground forces soldiers and Marines that eventually reached well over half a million men but when the troop requests kept coming with no evident RS in winning the war Washington's patience finally ran out in the spring of 1967 Westmoreland asked for 200,000 more troops but got only a fraction of that amount at the time he stated publicly that he was delighted with the outcome but in his memoirs decided instead that he had been extremely disappointed later still on the witness stand in a libel suit he brought against CBS television he changed his stance again and said he had not been extremely disappointed in response the CBS attorney read from Westmoreland's own book extremely disappointed forcing him to recant and then when in the wake of the enemy's 1968 Tet Offensive Westmoreland claimed a great victory and then asked for another 206 thousand troops a request he then spent years denying he had ever made he got just tokin forces and was soon on his way home it is very clear that Westmoreland thought he could take the war over from the South Vietnamese bring it to a successful conclusion then hand their country back to the South Vietnamese and go home in glory but he could not do that ambassador Ellsworth bunker saw that this was the case concluding that when the United States first got involved the political and psychological aspect of the war was not understood and he said because we didn't understand it our military thought we could get in and do the job and get out much more quickly than proved to be the case I think said bunker that's one reason we were slow in training the Vietnamese instead of starting really to train them in an intensive way when we first got there we didn't begin to train the Vietnamese with the objective of their taking over from us until general Abrams got there this disparity in resources especially weapons persisted throughout Westmoreland's tenure in Vietnam ambassador bunker noted it in a reporting cable to the President on 29 February 1968 only weeks before Westmoreland's departure after his four years there said bunker to the president the enemy has been able to equip his troops with increasingly sophisticated weapons they are in general better equipped than the Arvind forces effect which has an adverse bearing on Arvind morale he might have also said it had adverse bearing on Arvin's performance and reputation by the time Butler rendered this judgment Westmoreland had been in command of US forces in Vietnam for nearly four years another American ambassador during that period Westmoreland's longtime patron general Maxwell Tara was even more blood we never really paid attention to the Arvin army he said we didn't give a damn about them 1967 was a fateful time in Westmoreland's vietnam service 1968 the year of the enemies Tet Offensive is usually regarded as the watershed point in the war 1967 was also a fateful time during 1967 Westmoreland made three trips to the United States where in public appearances he gave very optimistic assessments of how the war was going this formed part of what later began to be called the Johnson administration's progress offensive very very encouraged said Westmoreland in a plain side press conference upon arriving in the u.s. in mid-november 1967 I've never been more encouraged he said during my entire almost four years in country at the National Press Club he asserted we have reached an important point where the end becomes - begins to come into view and he added the enemy's hopes our bankrupt on another visit that same year he spoke to a just joint session of Congress rendering another optimistic a report and being so taken with the experience that he later described it as the most memorable moment in his military career and his finest hour which gave him the greatest personal satisfaction I must say I find it very sad that a famous officer who rose to the top ranks of his percent of his profession found a political event the most memorable in his career 1967 was also a time of vigorous debate over the enemies order of battle meaning his strength and organization Westmoreland denied senior civilian officials accurate data by imposing a ceiling on the number of enemy forces his intelligence officers could report or agree to and then by personally removing from the order of battle entire categories that had for long been included thus falsely portraying progress in reducing enemy strength by May of 1967 President Johnson was referring to the war as a bloody impasse and military historian Russel widely commanded six commented succinctly on LBJ no cap capable war president he wrote would have allowed an officer of such limited capacities as general Westmoreland to head US forces in Vietnam for so long meanwhile Westmoreland challenged by news men on his optimistic pronouncements resorted to his familiar reliance on body count we are bleeding him a great deal more than he is bleeding us said Westmoreland later Westmoreland sought to portray prey portray 1967 as a triumphant year one during which he was winning the world read the McAfee command history for that year 1967 was characterized by accelerating efforts and growing success in all phases of McVie endeavors but that was not how he is or his performance were seen by others general boos Bruce Palmer jr. was then serving as deputy commanding general of US Army Vietnam and he told general Abrams when he arrived in May of 1967 to become deputy to Westmoreland that he really had he Palmer had basic disagreements with Westie on how it was organized and how we were doing it and later general Palmer elaborated on those views for journalist mark Perry it was just a mess he said we were losing and trying to put it together and it just wasn't working there wasn't anything that was working and in late summer 1967 ambassador Bucer submitted this assessment we still have a long way to go much of the country is still in Vesey Viet Cong hands the enemy can still sell our bases and commit acts of terrorism in the securest areas VC units still mount large-scale attacks most of the populous has still not actively committed itself to the government and a VC infrastructure still exists throughout the country that was what mr. Westmoreland had to show for three years of grand of US forces by the end of 1967 remembered Nixon Nicholas Katzenbach a grim sense of siege was descending on the White House finally even General William de PUE architect of the first search-and-destroy approach to the war admitted that it was a losing concept of operations we ended up he said after was all over with no operational plan that had the slightest chance of ending the war favorably in the face of this united opposition to his way of war Westmoreland maintained then and later that the North Vietnamese the enemy in mid 1967 were in a position of weakness this next I have to tell you it's the saddest thing to come out of the years of research that have led to this book there were many instances especially concerning matters in Vietnam where Westmoreland had been willing to shade or misremember or deny the record when his perceived interests were a state one episode involving his lack of confidence in the marine leadership is both illustrative and revealing shortly before the Tet Offensive began at the end of January 1968 Westmoreland decided to send his deputy by that time general Abrams north to the iCore region to establish and run their a tactical Hort headquarters that he designated Mac V forward from there the deputy was to control the operations of all US forces in the area including those of the Marine Corps Westmoreland's chief intelligence officer who I've mentioned before general Philip Davidson had returned from a visit to the Khe Sanh area populated by the marine corps and briefed Westmoreland on the situation there then he said the description of the unprotected installations and the general lack of preparation to withstand heavy concentrations of artery and mortar fire agitated general westmoreland finally he turned to his deputy and said something to the effect that he Westmoreland had lost confidence and Marine general Cushman's ability to handle the increasingly threatening situation his response was to set up Mack v forward marine reaction was predictable one division commander called this the most unpardonable thing Saigon did and said Marines viewed it with shock and astonishment Westmoreland soon held a press conference in which he denied that any loss of confidence in marine leadership had been his reason for placing the new headquarters over them Westmoreland also cabled Marine general Cushman in command of marine forces in in the iCore region to say there has been extensive background in here in Saigon with the various news bureau chiefs to point out that the establishment of fact V forward carried no stigma whatsoever with respect to the Marines that it was merely a normal military practice and that was only temporary only the temporary was true the other denials were false as evidenced not only by Davidson's eyewitness account which I've just related to you but also by a lengthy and anguished cable Westmoreland had sent contemporaneously to General Earl wheeler chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as you perhaps appreciated he began the military professionalism of the Marines falls far short of the standards that should be demanded by our armed forces indeed they are brave and proud but their standards tactics and lack of command supervision throughout their ranks requires improvement in the national interest and there was more I would be less than frank added Westmoreland in this message to general wheeler if it I did not say that I feel somewhat insecure with the situation in Quang Tri province in view of my knowledge of their shortcomings without question many lives would be saved if their tactical professionalism were enhanced after the war when the Marines were writing their history of the conflict they set a draft of the 1968 volume to Westmoreland for comment he marked it up so extensively and took issue with so many of the judgments rendered that he was invited to discuss the whole matter in person he accepted unwisely in my view and in a session with a number of Marine Corps historians again insisted with regard to establishment of Mack V Ford that that particular action had not a damn thing to do with my confidence in general Cushman or the Marines not a damn thing this was not only false but giving given the existing paper trail reckless in the extreme Westmoreland racked up a lengthy record of false misleading and inaccurate statements or omissions ranging from enemy order of battle to his troop requests from the situation in Vietnam to closure of the Khe Sanh base and from battles in the ear drank to prediction of an early end of the war to light at the end of the tunnel some of these matters were petty others of crucial importance but they were alike in one respect when Westmoreland saw his personal interests at stake he did not hesitate to conceal or abandon the truth when at the end of January 1968 the enemy stud offensive began Westmoreland's long turn at bat was nearing an end Newsweek magazine described a devastating measure of how far he had fallen in November said Newsweek when he was conjuring up the light at the end of the tunnel he was affectionately called Westie but by last week in most official and unofficial briefings he was general Westmoreland the Tet resurgence of enemy forces seen on television sets all over the country led many to conclude that in his optimistic forecasts of the previous year Westmoreland had either not known what he was talking about or he had not leveled with the American people it is hard to know which is the more devastating criticism what was clear however was that with his unavailing approach to conduct of the war Westmoreland had squandered four years of support for the war by much of the American people the Congress and even the media for the next four years Westmoreland is army chief of staff the army of that day was struggling with many problems some the result of the ongoing war in Vietnam others more societal in origin these included in discipline widespread drug abuse racial disharmony budget or vegetarian or Falls and the necessity to prepare for the end of the draft and impending transition to an all-volunteer force faced with these multiple crises Westmoreland decided to focus his attention elsewhere I spoke every state in the Union he later recalled I considered myself the military spokesman of the army and that I should be exposed to the American public and put forth the Army's point of view I felt that an understanding of the military was the primary mission that fell on my shoulders while I was chief of staff as the consequence he said I had too much to occupy me with such things as the details of army reorganization I frankly in evaluating the priorities of my time gave rather high priority to going around the country and giving them the facts of life with respect to the military during his four years as chief of staff Westmoreland apparently gained no more understanding of the war then he had had when he was in Vietnam Tom Pogue our was the CIA chief of station Saigon when Westmoreland made in 1972 visit he's still chief of staff they both attended a small function at ambassador ambassador bunkers residence where said pol gar with reference to Westmoreland I was astonished by his apparent lack of a stamp of understanding of what was going on in the war even then in later years Westmoreland viewed himself as very much put upon my years away he told a hometown audience my years away have been fraught with challenges frustrations and sadness nobody has taken more guff than I have he claimed and I'm not apologizing for a damn thing nothing and I welcome being the point man that outlook no second-guessing of himself and no regrets persisted through the end of his life as army chief of staff and beyond Westmoreland made strenuous efforts to shape the historic record in ways favorable to his version of reality this included writing his memoirs with the help of a ghost writer Kevin Buckley was formerly the Newsweek chief in Saigon and he reviewed the book commenting that from the beginning Westmoreland probably expected to write a memoir of victory similar to general Eisenhower's crusade in Europe and the defeat in Vietnam had not deterred him from doing this wrote Westmoreland self-pitying Lee as American commander in Vietnam I underwent many frustrations endured much interference lived with countless irritations swallowed many disappointments bore considerable criticism reviewing Westmoreland's book the well-known military commentator SLA marshal concluded that Westmoreland remains the goat symbol of the country's most mournful misadventure abroad ever two major episodes are both extremely traumatic marked the Westmoreland retirement years first was a dramatically unsuccessful campaign for governor in his native state of South Carolina then there was a failed libel suit against the CBS television network for a documentary charging Westmoreland with manipulation of enemy strength figures while he commanded US forces in Vietnam in each of these cases Westmoreland ignored the advice of highly qualified men who had his best interests at heart and who counseled against the courses of action Westmoreland to it in the political campaign Westmoreland came in second in the Republican primary to a state senator who then went on to be elected South Carolina's first Republican governor since reconstruction Westmoreland said he had found it very hard to shake hands with people to ask people for favors and to talk about himself despite campaign theme describing him as the only candidate with a proven leadership and administrative ability to carry South Carolina to greatness Westmoreland ran a poorly managed campaign never got out a coherent message and wound up deeply in debt afterward he called it his most humiliating experience in 1982 CBS television aired a documentary charging Westmoreland with having manipulated reports of enemy strength during the Vietnam War Westmoreland had willingly participated in making the program being interviewed on camera and all yes asking to be paid for doing so the resulting broadcast was not favorable to him with numerous former intelligence officers describing how enemy strength data had been manipulated and how Westmoreland himself had decreed that certain whole categories of enemy forces be taken out of the order of battle thus artificially driving down the total of enemy forces so as to claim progress in his war of attrition in due course against the advice of how high-powered attorneys men like Stanley Reese or the former secretary of the army and Cyrus Vance a Deputy Secretary of Defense men who had his interests at heart and who cautioned against it Westmoreland brought a libel suit against CBS seeking 120 million dollars in damages subsequent to the broadcast it came out that the producer had committed numerous violations of CBS guidelines the basic findings however were still seen as valid in the course of a lengthy trial with Westmoreland represented by an attorney who had never before tried a case in court things did not go well still the thing dragged on for some 18 weeks and then just days before the case would have gone to the jury the to the jury Westmoreland withdrew his suit in exchange he received a vanilla statement from CBS which he claimed exonerated him the effort to defame dishonor and destroy me he said and those under my command had been exposed and defeated I therefore withdrew from the battlefield all flags flying editorial opinion however was not so favorable the New York Times speaking for many succinctly stated the prevailing reaction at the end it concluded general Westmoreland stood in imminent danger of having a jury confirmed the essential truth of the CBS report for in court as on the original program the general could not get past the testimony of high-ranking former subordinates who confirmed his having colored some intelligence information said one of the jurors to the press on the way out the courthouse door for the last time the evidence in favor of CBS was overwhelming one of general Westmoreland's former aides said late in his life Westmoreland's life since Vietnam has been miserable Westmoreland himself seemed to have contributed much to that outcome the Vietnam War is my number one priority told an interviewer some years after retirement I've tried to spread myself thin and visit all sections of the country but then in an assertion completely undermining the meaning and purpose of all those years of incessant even frantic activity Westmoreland told a college audience that in the scope of history Vietnam is not going to be a big deal it won't float to the top as a major endeavor West merlyn's ultimate failure would have earned him more compassion it seems certain had he not personally been so fundamentally to blame for the eldest self promotion that elevated him to positions and responsibilities beyond his capacity its the aggressive guy who gets his share of plus Westmoreland maintain that principle he said applies to most anything and that's the way he operated in later years Westmoreland widely regarded as the general who had lost his war also lost his only run for political office lost his libel suit lost his reputation it was a sad ending for an who for most of his life in career had led a charmed existence John Westmoreland lived a long life afflicted by Alzheimer's disease for at least his last decade he died in July 2005 and was buried at a West Point at West Point in a grave he had selected when he was superintendent there as a final irony given Westmoreland very strong and vocal opposition to the admission of women to West Point the cadet honor guard for his burial ceremony was commanded and very Abele by a female cadet officer thank you very much I would be happy if you would like to entertain some comments and questions questions please raise your hand microphones on one side agree we'll get to 300 yes sir give us Mason Morgan sighs for your research about general Westmoreland's tenure as commander of 101st I've done two tours before candle and old veterans it sounds in that area spoke glowingly of his time their City was the best vision commander he'd ever had and I read an interview a broadcaster who was lieutenant during a time he said he was asking his element as a big banner shoulder he gives more insight and elaboration good that's that's good first question I have a theory developed over a number of years that in the Q&A if the first question is a good one the Q&A will go well and so thanks for starting us through the government the evaluation of general westmoreland as commander of the hundred first Airborne Division was overwhelmingly positive at that time not only did he think he was a great general but the soldiers thought so too and he was genuinely interested in the well-being of his soldiers he was very concerned that they went off post and and went to Road houses or whatever and and and drank a lot of alcohol and then drove their private vehicles back for example and he and he went he established places on post where they could get bear cheaper a nickel cheaper and and he'd go out to these places where the soldiers were and he would talk to them and he'd say listen guys what are you doing out here you could be back on the post drinking beer cheaper and they would try to explain to him how somehow that wasn't quite the same thing but he never really grasped that but but his heart was in the right place and and at one time he told them this what he commanded for two years there and this was in like a State of Union address let us say but with respect to the division he told them with great sincerity and kuroh that in the past year they had lost an infantry companies worth of soldiers in POV wrecks and accidents due to use of alcohol and things like that and he was trying really hard to drive that to drive that down a gem Schlessinger told me once the former Secretary of Defense that he had had a conversation about the about general Westmoreland and this tenure at the hundred first with Vernon Walters another very well known general and he said what do you think Westy peaked at a major general and the Walter said well Colonel but so they you know their views differ on this but but I do think you it would be it would be mean-spirited to say that his tenure in command 101st was less than the outstanding and and I say in the book that that was probably the level at which the range of responsibilities the intellectual requirements of job the the high degree of physical activity the close contact with the soldiers were still well within his capacity and only that when he was elevated to more complex flex situations and circumstances did his did his flaws become more apparent I'll tell you one more thing about that too because he went on as I said just briefly I mean there wasn't time to cover all these assignments he went on then to be the superintendent at West Point for three years and he got a letter from the chief of staff on chief of staff you know stationery handwritten and it said in the first sentence he said very confidentially I've recommended the Secretary of the army has has approved that you will be sent at the West Point this coming summer when the incumbent moves on and then he feels necessary to put in a second sense trying to assuage what he anticipated would be Westmoreland's great disappointment that this would not involve a promotion it was to be another two yards so he he tells him the heads of all the academies their two-star but he said we think this is very important assignment and we think you're the best man for the job now I think I think there some hyperbole there and I'll tell you why in his long career 36 years in the Army the only formal instruction that John Westmoreland underwent was a one-month course in mess management given at the cooks and Baker's school in Hawaii when he was a lieutenant there and parachute school after World War two he missed out on all the stops in the Army's great series of educational opportunities he'd not go to the command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth he did not go to the Army War College or any of the other war colleges here or elsewhere and and perversely he was rather proud of that he said sometimes I've never I haven't read the book he said so you know I'm basically I'm not infected by that way of conducting affairs I thought he was a very surprising choice to head West Point because as I just said he'd missed out on all the army schooling he had also not been to graduate school he had not had a stint as a as in it as a junior officer as an instructor at West Point as many of his contemporaries had had and and he wrote in letters to some of the people that he relied on as sponsors some letters early on that recognized that this was he was not really well suited for this I will say I will say this he recognized the areas that he was that he was not an intellectual in not enacted omission and he focused on details of administration and logistics to some good effect in fact after he left he was there for three years after he left an officer who had known him there sent him a note sinister is down at the University of South Carolina and he says your picture is still hanging in the printing plant at West Point since you're the only superintendent that ever visited the printing plant or took the slightest interest in them there they refuse to acknowledge that you are long that you are gone and and and so that was okay you know but I've run on a bit here but I thought your question is quite it and and I believe it's fair to say that had general Westmoreland retired after command of 101st Airborne Division he would have been viewed as one of our finest old fine soldiers and his reputation would have remained that it's just too bad that he was elevated to other levels and as I said in my closing had that not been the result to such a great degree of his soul and self-promotion a lot more sympathy would have followed him I think then has been the case thanks anybody else all right I've another lecture here get on mind like we are soldiers and really did come out that the North Vietnamese the will never quit that's a yes is there anything in the general Westmoreland's writings or comments or interviews or anything of you said well maybe oh just maybe somebody would never run where yeah that's a really good question too that's another reason I think why there's not more sympathy for him because although lots of other senior officers took issue with his approach to the conduct of the war then you know not waiting till later and doing it in retrospect but in the course of it General Fred why in general Harold Kay Johnson General William Yarborough Bruce Palmer jr. lots of others I could name all said hey this isn't working and when it was all over I quoted General William de PUE because he was the architect as the j-3 the operations officer of Mac V of the Search and Destroy approach to the conduct of the war and de PUE had the integrity and the decency to say afterward we were wrong we never understood the tenacity of the enemy and their willingness to take these really horrifying losses and keep coming back keep coming back Westmoreland was never able to bring himself to admit that or maybe to even understand it I don't know whether which it was and and I think that cost him a great deal and and I alluded to this in the in giving the one illustration about the the putting back to be forward in over the Marines and at how he claims that that had nothing to do with his loss of confidence in the Marines and of course it did and he was on record as saying that but recklessly a kept maintaining otherwise he he kept he kept telling people in his chain of command especially Lyndon Johnson that that we were winning and so when pressed by how he could demonstrate that he always fell back on body count which as they said is the measure of merit in a war of attrition but the problem was okay so you killed X numbers of the enemy let's leave aside for the moment the issue of whether the body count was reported honestly or whether that was a corrupt measure of merit if the enemy replaces all his losses and even sometimes adds more you haven't you haven't accomplished a thing you've just got to go back and do it over and over again and as I said when senator Hollings went out and said to him said to him what he did the American people don't care about the ten they care about the one Westmoreland had every chance to be educated on that point but he remained impervious to it so as far as I know and believe me I have spent a lot of time on this Westmoreland never admitted that he had adopted an unavailing approach and he was asked many times if you had it to do over would you do anything differently as he left Saigon for the last time after four and a half years there the four last for his commander naturally he had a press conference he always had a press conference and naturally they asked him would you do anything different if you had it to do over again and and he waltzed around that a little bit but essentially his answer was would not this is way to do it are you one handle it's very rare good to go but not going to late seventies I was teaching low intensity conflict at Leavenworth we came upon a reference to statements like general s Martin but he kept talking the Sun Tzu's Art of War in his bedside table and based on our study of the work we suspected that he didn't actually ever take it off the table you indicated that he really didn't understand but if you come across any indication the general try to understand that he did any kind of reading or studying Erasmus staff provided information that would provide him some insights into the enemy that that's that's the thank you for another really good question let me take the backend first and then I'll go back to how you and you started the question the the instances that I am most aware of where he asked his staff for input on matters relating to the conduct of the war occurred after he came back to be chief of staff of the army and he was a he was a working on simultaneously several things which I characterized as efforts to shape the the story of the war the war as he viewed it one major one was a report on the war in Vietnam which he has spent an enormous amount of time on he wanted Admiral sharp who had been I think Admiral sharp had been the sync pack at the time that he was that was one was in Vietnam he asked a sharp to collaborate with him on this and sharp wouldn't do it but he would agree to write his own piece and so sharp had a piece and Westmoreland had a piece I think we can gauge Admiral sharps that have used not only for what he says in his piece but from later when Westmoreland writes his memoirs and he asks Sharpe to give him a bourbon sharp turns him down the report on the war in Vietnam that's the title of it and then of course Harris here this is Westmoreland 1968-69 the war still roar on the war it's going to last for six more years five of it with a Senate so it's really the report of his war in Vietnam but he doesn't characterize it that way he's got a series of monographs that he tasks senior general officers to write or to manage the writing of and he's got him on after practically every topic logistics and each of the major battles and intelligence and so on and of course the people writing these are under his control under his command and they come out they come out you know pretty uncritical the only major topic area he didn't assign a monograph on was mechanized and armored operations in Vietnam even though general Haynes the four-star armor officer urged him to do that so after he's gone and there's a new chief of staff general dawn story gets the mission he picks it up and he writes the the monograph on armored operations it turns out to be a best-seller for the Government Printing Office and because it was written late it's the only one that covers the whole war all these others sort of end with with Westmoreland tenure he writes the he writes his memoirs while he's while he said chief of staff of the army and I didn't say anything a book about whether this might be illegal or unethical because Colonel Paul miles who was then a major working for him is a friend of mine and I didn't think I wanted to raise that issue with respect to him but Paul miles goes out and interviews all kinds of senior generals and writes up the results of those and that becomes fodder input for the memoirs written after Westmoreland retires and now I'm getting to answer your question Westmoreland tasks people in the hierarchy of the army staff to give him input on topics that he is interested in and I'm not sure that I can remember them all but one that what the one that was very interesting had to do with the one-year tour in Vietnam general Westmoreland was adamant that there would be a one-year tour and and for a long time he argued that that was a really good thing but now getting ready I think to do his memoirs he asks the desperate to tell him about the one year Turk and they sent him back a sizzler and and the last line of it were child paraphrased is the one-year tour has caused most of the problems we have in army personnel and and as persistent for at least six years and we see no end to it coming well that wasn't of course the answer but he hoped for but that's what he's doing he's trying to get this kind of input of a little lost track where I should be going on this is that sort of answer all right thank you first demand beans it's both obvious and well-founded Craig neighbors recognized the need for change took over I if you mentioned his name of the fact that he was this succeeding deputy here that commander I haven't heard anything about what comments or writings he if he may have left behind in particular was one cases the identities really yes I you didn't hear that on purpose this is Westmoreland's book now obviously a lot other people come into play and I've quoted a number of them already tonight and in the book I quote a lot more it's a very it's very interesting to me because a lot of people comment on well for a long time just about everything that was written about the war by people like Stanley Karnow and and Neil Sheehan and so on treated the war as though it were a homogeneous whole and that it was the kind of war that we knew in Westmoreland years and if we've achieved anything in in the last twenty years or so I hope and believe it is that people at least recognize that the earlier years under Westmoreland and the later years under general Abrams were much much different in almost all important respects and most importantly in in terms of the understanding of the nature of the war and from which then you drive a concept of how such a work the general Abrams was not a person to go around boosting his own stock and and he didn't write much when he was most people here know I think that he also came back to be army chief of staff Jericho Manning for years in Vietnam and that after only two years since chief of staff he died in office and they didn't think he was going to die he had lung cancer along was removed he was recuperating and Bruce Palmer his close friend and classmate they'd been young cavalry officers together after graduating from West Point went to see him and he said he said Abe he didn't know he was going to die then but he thought he might have to retire he said Abe you should write your memoirs and and and joram said absolutely not I'm never going to do that and general Palmer tried to persuade him he said yes he said they could be like like Grant's memoirs you know modest and factual and help us learn a lot and and general Abram said no I'm not going to do that he said well why is that and he said well you this is an old joke but he said too many vertical pronouns that was not his style but we have some things from him that tell us a lot about both how he felt about the conduct of the war and how I felt about the profession of being a soldier general Jack Vesey name known to many people here tonight former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said after general Abrams had been dead and we and many years had gone by because people raised the issue did general Westmoreland in only two years as chief of staff I'd have any real effect on it army and his future general Vesey said when americans saw the great army that fought Desert Storm they were seeing the Abrams vision in action he said the equipment that worked the use of reserve forces the effective close air support and above all the great training that taught our soldiers how to stay alive on the battlefield were all seeds planted by eight and then many people here at night I know have a been at the Army War College as students or as faculty members or as visitors and if you come out of Roode Hall right in front of you where that circle is there there's a statement by general Abrams and and he says we must have an army that has a vision and soldiers who are willing to carry out that vision to march a little farther to carry a heavier load and to step out into the darkness and the unknown for the well-being of others well that's I think that's a wonderful summation of him now I guess I should just add add briefly with respect to the conduct of the world Alfred Ryan said the tactics changed within 15 minutes after general Abrams took command and the way they changed was like this a general westmoreland in his fixation on the on the large unit operations in the war of search-and-destroy basically neglected two other important responsibilities one was to build up South Vietnam's armed forces so they could become more capable of taking over the responsibility for their country's security and the other was pacification and it's especially rooting out this covert infrastructure in the in the Hamlet's and villages oh I described how he never gave the South Vietnamese any decent weapons even though there are enemy was armed with ak-47s and the best stuff the Communists had and would would give to them and so when general Abrams came he drew on a study called the proven study PR ovn which was done under the auspices of general Harold K Johnson who is then the chief of staff of the army and this study said what general Westmoreland is doing is not working and cannot work and the reason is it's having no effect on the war on the villages and it said that the villages have to be the central point of focus of the way to fight this kind of war general Abrams was the vice chief of staff at the time and he signed off on that study and as soon as he got to Vietnam general Philip Davidson is a great resource he's gone now but I want to tell you I harvested him to a fare-thee-well he was he was the j2 the last year under Westmoreland and the first year under Abrams and his ability to make comparative judgments was unparalleled he also liked to drink martinis which I sometimes like to do and he lived in San Antonio where I sort of grew up and and visit pretty often but but but general Davidson was was very clear on what happened in the later years and the great thing about it was a triumvirate of some of the most superb public servants our country has ever had ambassador Ellsworth bunker in charge of the embassy for six years and general Abrams in command of military forces and William Colby in charge of support for pacification a really great team thanks good question as a child a bit more question when father was a combat engineer the later that's a great question too but it's a really hard one to answer as I said at the outset he's a very complex man and is hard to understand but it's very clear that he was driven by personal ambition and as I sought to illustrate when he saw his interests at stake he was not he was he did not shy away from abandoning his truth when he was coming back in 60s 1967 making those optimistic things statements that I told you that it does not appear that he believed them because in internal documents you see a much starker view of the of the state of the war on the other hand there is a plenty of blame to go around Time magazine sent me some interrogatories and invited me to answer them and at which I did and they posted them on their electronic website I don't think they published them in the actual magazine and forgotten what the first question was but the second question no that's the second question second second question was do you believe in the subtitle the general who us or so do you believe that subtitle is fair and I said yes eminently and then I described in some detail why I thought it was fair and where I wound up with and this gets to your question of what the outcome of the war I said because this approach based on body count where the enemy keeps replacing his you know it's lost this and so we're never getting any closer to any any sort victory I said he squandered four years of support for the war by the public and the Congress and even much of the media so that's the indictment that makes him the general who was who lost the war but then the next question Time magazine said well is well if you think the subtitle was fair who were the co-conspirators and in what order of culpability so so I said well if they're obviously at least the three in the top ranked and I named Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara and General or a wheeler and I described why I thought each of them deserved to be at least in the top rank of co-conspirators and then they at the end I said if pressed not everyone will agree with what I'm about to say now probably I said if pressed I would say the most culpable was General Earl wheeler and then I put Lyndon Johnson and then McNamara I think although you know emotionally you want to put McNamara top but I take I thought we were really deserved to be it there but back to what your father was talking to you about here are the facts as I believe them to be in this new approach to the conduct of the war I described how Westmoreland's responds to any problem was to asked for more troops and and he got him for a long time you know until 67 and then 68 so much so that at the high-water mark the authorization was five hundred forty nine thousand five hundred soldiers never really got quite to that level we got to five forty three four hundred at the end of April 69 he's gone by then but they were in the pipeline because his request Abrams never asked for a single war soldier the whole time that he's in command and just as we've built up built up built up in earlier years when Abramson's command we build down down down down in 614 successive increments so that by the time we get to the big 1972 Easter offensive general Abrams this great tank commander for a war to all he's got left to work with his our airpower and a little naval gunfire but it suffices and so of the Armed Forces of Vietnam had by that time become pretty confident now you could talk to all kinds of people will say there was corruption and there was and there was inadequate leadership and there was I've edited huge book about this thick of monographs written by its senior South Vietnamese after the war was over and and I say at the beginning that traumatized as they were by the loss of their country the loss of their homes the disruption and relocation and their family and all the things you know but I felt they were far too hard on themselves but nevertheless they step up on on these matters but the fact is that they had a functioning government and a functioning army and they were holding their own we've all gone home at the end of March 1973 as a result of the Paris Accords and they're holding their own until the Congress of the United States and its wisdom decides that even though all were giving him now is money we're not going to do that anymore either and they radically cut back the allocation of funds and and at that point it's over it's over I quoted Tom Pulgar a friend of mine who was the chief of station Saigon at the last and in one of his final messages he said this is a paraphrase but it's pretty close he said outcome no longer in doubt because South Vietnamese cannot sustain themselves without our help so long as the Communists continue to get robust help from their sponsors Communist China and Soviet Union polgár Chifa station and a message and that was right so so if you want to get right down to it the instrument of our betrayal of the South Vietnamese was the Congress the United States in order to get the South Vietnamese to agree to the Paris Accords which they saw as mortally threatening they made no mention of the Communists in the South Vietnam they didn't have to go anywhere but all the allies in the south had to withdraw we had to withdraw the Koreans the Thais everybody that was there helping them and President you saw this you know this was going to be very difficult for them to survive under those circumstances and Richard Nixon sent him assurance after assurance letters envoys and they said the president said to President Chu of South Vietnam you've got to sign on if you don't the Congress the United States is going to vote us out of the war if you stay on here's what we'll do for you if there's renewed fighting we will reintroduce military forces to punish the enemies violations of the Accord he's talking about b-52s secondly he said if there's renewed fighting we will replace on a one-for-one basis any major combat systems losses you experience that means tanks are Tory pieces aircraft as was provided for in the Paris Accord so the Paris Accords contemplated the possibility of resumed offensive fighting and thirdly said mr. Nixon will guarantee you robust financial support for the foreseeable future and I'm sorry to say that when it came to the crunch we defaulted on all through three of those commitments and as Tom Polgara had said game over the only one I'm prompted to add one thing that's not in your question but but it's very much in the front of my mind in the last number of years I've had the privilege and I consider that of making a quite a number of friends in the expatriate Vietnamese community mostly in America you probably know that at the at the end we evacuated all the Americans who were left in in South Vietnam and 130,000 thought to be at risk South Vietnamese and after that many many more came as boat people and under later programs called the early departure program and so on there at least a million Vietnamese expatriates in the United States they're more in Australia Canada France I think those are the main places and and I would like to to that I am very very proud of the Vietnamese friends that I have in this country they they have wholeheartedly adopted what we refer to as the American dream they've worked hard they've adhered to sound Family Values they believed in education and and they've done extremely well so even though they lost the war there many of them have remade their lives in ways that I admire very much very greatly that's a very very good question and a good one to end on I thank you for that I thank all the questioners for a very very fine questions the question this lady s is given his failure to peruse why was Westmoreland allowed to stay as a commander in Vietnam for such a long time for four years and of course that's a perfectly reasonable question I did quote to you my friend the late Russell wag Lee's comment that no capable war president would have allowed so limited a man of such limited abilities as Westmoreland to state a commanding there for so long and I have wondered about this a lot too I think they're sort of two sides to the answer one side is that in the chain of command of people who had the authority to replace him you've got Lyndon Johnson as commander Chief Robert McNamara as the secretary of defense and then the first military man in that chain of command general Earl wheeler is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyndon Johnson had no background or experience in military affairs nor as far as I can tell did Robert McNamara so then you get to wheeler and general wheeler is essentially a staff officer littel command experience and none in combat and so the first part of my answer is I conclude that these people had the authority in the chain of command to replace him lack the knowledge to do so and maybe the confidence to do so knowing their own lack of background and experience on the other hand there are all kinds of people telling them that this isn't working and they had every opportunity to conclude that maybe they should try something different the most important person working that network of trying to persuade some change bring about some change was was General Harold K Johnson who was for the same four years Westmoreland commanded in Vietnam the chief Johnson was the chief staff the army a man I admire extravagantly as some of you know I've written a biography of him as well under his leadership I've alluded to this briefly this is proven study was done saying that Westmoreland's way was not working and that there was another better way to do it but general Johnson's not in the chain of command he's a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff so theoretically he has some influence at least to the extent that he can shake the shape the collective viewpoint of the Joint Chiefs of Staff but it was not successful in doing that general wheeler adhered to the view that firepower was the major thing to be brought to bear in a counterinsurgency war and absolutely in my view an absolutely ludicrous point of view and this study was briefed around of general Westmoreland rejected it out of hand of course it says what he's doing to know it's not very effective not it not all effective some of you will know the name of herb Chandler herb Chandler is a retired Army officer who later I wrote some very good historical works including a book about LBJ in the war in Vietnam which is a very worthwhile herb told me that when this proven study came in to the headquarters in McVie he was the staff officer assigned to write the answer from West Point and he said we all fought meaning the junior officers there we all felt this was great but we couldn't say that we had to say things like well there's some good ideas in here for study and we're doing most of this already and and other things like that to get it put up put it put on the Shelf so there were people lots of people who were at the time were critical of the way what whirlen was doing this and so you had you'd have to say somebody should have stepped up and said to the president this has got to change it's very significant it seems to me that not later than the autumn of 1966 the heads of the two services whose whose troops were doing the fighting in Vietnam Army Chief of Staff General Carol K Johnson and his soldiers and command on the green for General Greene Western Hall greens first name Wallace green thank you they agreed that the way worth born was fighting the war was not working and here's the really the kicker they agreed that there was a viable alternative what the proven study had said to do and yet they were powerless to bring about any change yeah I've just got to go on another couple minutes here if you won't mind this is a rich question and there's a lot to be said to it general Johnson was a man of unparalleled integrity and decency and he was desperate to try to change the way things were going in Vietnam he went out 11 times during the war once while he was deaf deputy chief of staff for operations in ten times while his while he was chief of staff and he told general Westmoreland on one trip he said we're now writing checks for a quarter of a billion dollars a month for ammunition that's three billion dollars a year and he said the reports I get say that 85 percent of it is being fired on H&I fires that's stands for harassment and interdiction fires and they're fired just on coordinates on the map or so on on the premise that some enemy might be passing by and you would happen to hit them and general Johnson's view was that yeah you might also happen to hit some villagers who are out there and and that would not be so good so on the monetary grounds on the military effectiveness grounds and on the collateral damage grounds he suggested to general Westmoreland that we all ratchet this back a little bit not two weeks later Westmoreland sends a message to one of his principal sub commanders and he says out here in the seven mountains region he said I think we should up the H and I fires by an order of magnitude 100 to 200 rounds per tube per day that was his response to the general general Johnson's a good suggestions to him general Johnson wrestled endlessly with the question of whether he as chief of staff the army should resign in protest at the way the war is being conducted and one of the major issues confronting him was Lyndon Johnson's refusal to allow the army to call up its reserve forces every contingency plan we had for any kind of build up event of the magnitude required by the deployments to Vietnam contemplated caught up with the reserve forces and Lyndon Johnson would not allow him to do that in the period we're talking about I don't know why this is somebody here might know this but five-star generals were considered never to have retired when they're too old to serve anymore they don't get a new assignment but they're there on active duty and one of those still living was Omar Bradley and Omar Bradley had a little office in the Pentagon and he used to come there sometimes and general Johnson saw that he was maybe a little lonely there and so he had a little coffee service put in there and so on and then when he heard that general Bradley was in the Pentagon if he could he'd carve out a few minutes and go down and chat with him I thought that was a very compassionate and also was very typical of general Johnson but one time he goes down there and he and he has a serious matter he wishes to discuss and he says he says to general Bradley help how wrenching it is to him that he cannot get these reserve horses called and he's thinking maybe he should resign in protest and general Bradley's advice to him went as he said no no he said you don't want to do that you'll just be considered a disgruntled in general you'll get one day in the newspapers and then they'll get somebody else that will come in and do what they want you should stay and fight for what you think is right and so general Johnson did that and then near the end of his life and he told this to three different people all known to me all people in whom I have the utmost confidence in terms of their accuracy and their integrity he said to them I should have resigned in protest I failed to take that action and I will go to my grave with that moral lapse on my conscience now I will say that I don't agree with that judgment because by staying as he did he tried to get Westmoreland to change the way he was fighting the war with the purlins study and then unable to do that he tried to get him replaced he sent general Abrams out there as deputy to us Marlin Abrams had been his vice chief of staff for three years he said this was giving up my right arm but he sent him out there and very few people know what I'm about to tell you it was understood that when general Abrams went out in May of 1967 before Tet before a lot of the trauma that we've been talking about he was going to take command within a matter of a few weeks and and it among the persuasive evidence for the facts for that being factual he was allowed to choose his own chief of staff and take him with him and he chose general Dutch Kerwin and Kerwin rode out on the airplane with him and they got to Vietnam and kerlun became the chief of staff but Abrams did not become the commander until 13 months later and on another occasion I'll tell you why I think that happened but but in any event he languishes there for this long period of time and uh I have entered viewed Mike and some others here know this I have interviewed over just nearly 30 years now that I've been interested in these matters about five or six hundred people some of them over and over again I suppose I interviewed general Bruce Ballmer thirty times and talked with him informally 50 more times or hundred and Dutch girl in the same way and Fred why in the same way and I guess I'll just close by saying this my strong conviction is about the war it didn't have to end that way thank you all very much

Channel: USArmyWarCollege

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Keywords: Army War College

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Length: 88min 34sec (5314 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 03 2011