by Lewis Sorley
AFTER EIGHT MONTHS in Japan the 187th went back to Korea on 21 June 1953, only weeks before the armistice, when the Chinese communists launched a major attack with the 68th Army. The troopers flew to landing fields near the front rather than parachuting in. Westmoreland wrote to his father that "for a while we were engaged in a pretty good fight on the fringes of the Chinese offensive against the South Korean Army." He later recalled seeing "the famous Capital Division [a Republic of Korea unit] break and stream through my command [while retreating in panic]. We held the shoulder of the breakthrough, which was a very big one. We made a relief of the 7th Regiment of the 9th Division in the middle of the night." Then "we had a very hairy several days."4
The Korean War armistice took effect on 27 July 1953. Leading up to it, there were small but vicious fights as both sides sought to grab more territory before the end of hostilities. At that time Westmoreland had his regiment on line above Kumwha, with the 1st Battalion occupying positions on what was known as Hill 604. The forces were disposed along a ridgeline to protect against just such Chinese efforts to seize more terrain. Late one afternoon he got a call telling him to withdraw the 1st Battalion and move it to a new position some three or four miles to the rear.
Westmoreland was extremely reluctant to carry out this order, since his 3rd Battalion was out in front of Hill 604, and would thus be left more exposed and endangered by the withdrawal, besides which the 1st Battalion was holding critical terrain at the head of the Chorwon Valley.5 He protested the order to Major General William L. Barriger, commander of the 2nd Infantry Division, to which his outfit was then assigned. Barriger, said Westmoreland, "was known as the 'Bull' and he lived up to that reputation. He had a bark for everybody which was a cover-up for his inadequacy as a division commander." Barriger gave Westmoreland an ultimatum—carry out the order or be relieved of his command. Westmoreland complied, but stated that he was carrying out the order under protest. The move was made in total darkness during a driving rainstorm and, maintained Westmoreland, "jeopardized [my] headquarters and lines of communication." "It was a hectic night which I will never forget—confusion reigned. But the next morning we were able to regain our tactical integrity."6
Apparently no adverse consequences resulted from this controversy, on or off the battlefield. General Barriger, for his part, held no grudges. Instead he sent Westmoreland a cordial letter, recalling that "from 14 July 1953 until the signing of the Armistice, the 187th Regimental Combat Team... was given the mission of defending the approaches to Kumwha, some of the most important terrain in the division sector." That mission was accomplished extraordinarily well, he said. "During this period of fourteen days not one enemy soldier crossed your lines except as a PW [prisoner of war]." An interesting aspect of the matter was later revealed in the 187th's command report for July 1953: General Barriger had ordered Westmoreland to withdraw the battalion "at the direction of the corps commander."
Major Frederick Kroesen, later a four-star general, was in command of the 1st Battalion during that controversial withdrawal and got to know Westmoreland well. He came away with mixed views. "Westy was a great commander of airborne troops," he recalled. "They responded to him very well." But "we questioned his judgment on some occasions. We talked about his ambition, which clouded some of the things he wanted to do. I remember, in one of those discussions, someone saying he'd court-martial his wife if he thought it would get him another star."7
Barriger was not the only senior commander Westmoreland had problems with. On an earlier deployment to Korea the 187th had been attached to the 7th Infantry Division, then commanded by Major General Wayne Smith, described by Westmoreland as "a short roly-poly man with a loud mouth who the troops called 'Shaped Charge Six' because of his protruding belly. General Smith could be described as a dishonest showman," said Westmoreland, "and it was disgusting to me to see some of the demonstrations that he would stage for visiting delegations from the United States."8
THE TERMS OF the armistice included a seventy-two-hour period during which supplies and equipment could be recovered from the positions then occupied by the opposing forces in what was to become the Demilitarized Zone. Westmoreland kept detailed records of what his troops accomplished, noting that they policed up and stockpiled 562 miles of commo wire, 103,813 sandbags, 4,148 pickets, 7,688 pieces of lumber, and 26,020 logs. "This salvage operation tops anything that I have seen," he proudly told the unit.
The 187th redeployed to Japan aboard a Navy transport, the USS Pope. Westmoreland recalled that as his troops boarded the vessel he stood at the gangplank and inspected every man. "The officers and NCOs were so effective I did not have to correct one man," he said. "I was proud." Later the ship's captain told Westmoreland these were the finest troops he'd ever seen. "Who have you been carrying?" Westmoreland asked. "Marines!" the skipper replied.9
WHILE THE OUTFIT was in Korea, Westmoreland had promoted as its motto "Every Man a Tiger." "When the fighting stopped and we were ordered back to Japan, I had tigers on my hands," he realized, "and Beppu was no place for tigers." He launched a "detigerization" program—with what he admitted was mixed success.
One project involved selecting verses to be sung to the tune of the "Rakkasan March." A board of judges had chosen various candidate verses on which the troops were asked to vote. Another diversion was a "gigantic" intramural sports program. Westmoreland also devised a card to be issued to each member of the outfit. It included these definitions, developed by him personally: Trooper: Trained, Reliable, Observant, Proud, Efficient, Rakkasan. Drooper: Disgraceful, Rowdy, Overbearing, Obnoxious, Poor Example, Rakkasan. His message: "Be a Trooper, Not a Drooper."
"THE TROOPS LOVED Westmoreland," said Charlie Montgomery, later Westmoreland's military stenographer. "They really did. He knew their names, his 187th compatriots." Many of those troopers wrote to Westmoreland in later years, always in very warm terms, one saying he did so "to thank you for the soldierly example you had set for me during my early years as a very impressionable and slightly scared junior officer." Sergeant James Costa wrote a memoir of his service in which he said of Westmoreland, "He is a great American, patriot, statesman, and combat general with a lot of heart for his soldiers."10
Corporal Arno Land was one of those who served in the 187th under Westmoreland. He was having a problem with an allotment from his pay that was supposed to be going to his mother. One day, after a skirmish with a North Korean unit, Corporal Land was walking down a road en route to the regimental command post to see if he could get some help with his problem. He had just started out when he encountered the regimental commander coming forward in his jeep. Westmoreland stopped and asked what the young soldier was doing. Land explained the problem. Westmoreland got on the radio, talked to someone in his headquarters, then got out of his jeep and told Land to get in. The regimental commander proceeded to walk to the forward positions while Corporal Land was driven to the rear. At the command post, Land was met by a senior NCO who handled his situation. Some years later Land, by then a sergeant first class, related this story in a discussion about leaders with a young officer recently assigned to the 101st Airborne Division. "Corporal Land never again had a problem with the allotment to his mother," recalled Lieutenant Colonel Robert Frank, who had heard this story as a lieutenant, "and that's why he held his commander in such high regard for the rest of his life."11
DURING HIS MANY months in Japan Westmoreland worked hard at building good relations with the Japanese communities near where his troops were stationed, among other things by helping orphanages. He proposed establishment of a Joint Governor's Council for Oita Prefecture, serving on it himself and hosting its meetings at the Camp Chickamauga Officers Club. This council served, said Westmoreland, as a forum in which to "discuss mutual problems, determine corrective action, and make wise recommendations with the long range objective of promoting and maintaining a healthy Japanese-American friendship." He likewise set up a Beppu City Committee and an Oita City Committee and served
as a member of both.
In Beppu Oita, Sizuko Ogo ran Orphanage Eiko-en, a facility his mother and father had established and which Westmoreland had helped when he was stationed in Japan. "If you had not helped us," Ogo wrote to him many years later, "many children would have died at that time." Now, he reported, he was carrying on the work of his parents, and "your photograph is hanging on the wall of my office and it always reminds me of the good old days."
SURPRISINGLY, GIVEN HIS reputation as a moderate drinker, when Westmoreland headed back to the United States for his next assignment he decided to ship home several cases of liquor using a tax-avoidance scheme. "In Virginia there is a rather high tax," he wrote to a fellow officer, whereas in the District of Columbia one could obtain a permit without cost. "In my case," he explained, "since I was a member of the Fort McNair Club I had mine shipped to me in care of the club," which was in the District and where, he said, "I had no difficulty in getting a permit from the authorities."12 Of course he did not reside at the club or anywhere else within that jurisdiction.
En route home from Japan, Kitsy had an emergency operation in Kyoto which delayed their travel for several weeks. During that time Westmoreland was placed on temporary duty with the nearby U.S. 3rd Marine Division. "It was interesting to serve with the Marines and I found them to be a fine outfit," he wrote to his friend Bob Ashworth. "However, they are decidedly second best to the airborne troops in the Army. They can in no way hold a candle to the 187 in the matter of appearance, discipline, esprit de corps or training."13 Westmoreland wrote a similar account to another friend, observing that "although it was interesting duty, frankly they did not show me much."14
TOWARD THE END of his command tour and thereafter, when he was back in the United States, Westmoreland worked energetically—and successfully—to promote award of a Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation to the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. He had an in with Colonel Carl Schmidt at the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group to the ROK (Republic of Korea). That officer was willing to push such a recommendation. At the end of December 1953 he wrote to Westmoreland, "I have seen nothing of a proposed ROK citation for the 187th RCT. Perhaps you might remind the present commander that it would be very easy to have one approved once it is submitted." Westmoreland then wrote to Major Nicholas Psaki on the staff of the 187th, noting a letter he had sent to Colonel Russ (the Deputy Commander) recommending expedited action on such an application. "If we can get this in before Colonel Schmidt is reassigned," he stressed, "it would pay the outfit great dividends." Somehow it all worked out, and the award was authorized.
IN LATER YEARS Westmoreland again served with a number of people who had been with him in the 187th. Among the most prominent was Edward "Fly" Flanagan, who in Korea led the RCT's artillery battalion and became a lifelong admirer of his commander. Flanagan recalled that Westmoreland's "demeanor, personality, and physique were Hollywood's answer to a modern brigadier, but he was more than a model. He had the intelligence, moral quality, and judgment to fit the physical appearance." He remembered gratefully that "this commander checked his units without smothering the commanders, cared for the troops and their needs, fought with higher commanders when he thought that his men were being grossly ill-employed in combat, understood his mission, carried it out with skill, and backed up his battalion commanders when necessary."15
Later Westmoreland would describe command of the 187th as "the most satisfying experience of my military service." And in a television biography he reaffirmed his pleasure in that experience and others that had come before it, saying, "The highlight of my career was commanding paratroopers." Now another major comedown lay before him, the life of a Pentagon staff officer. Apparently he was not much looking forward to that new posting, writing to a friend that he hoped to see him on his next assignment, but "don't wish you the Pentagoose."
6. Pentagon
WESTMORELAND'S FIRST HIGH-LEVEL staff assignment took him to the Army Staff in the Pentagon, where he was designated Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff G-1 for Manpower Control. This put him, entirely unschooled, into the complicated and crucial business of Army personnel policy. Early in the new assignment he wrote a rather plaintive letter to a staff officer in his old outfit: "It is considerably frustrating attempting to fit into this huge and complicated operation without benefit of G-1 [personnel] background or Indian-level training in the Pentagon."
A friend's letter offered an explanation for the assignment. "Saw Willie Palmer [General Williston B. Palmer, now Vice Chief of Staff of the Army] about three weeks ago. Asked him why he hadn't got you in his office. Told me that he felt the boys who are to run the Army should get a G-1 education and that he had wanted you prepared."
Kitsy went to North Carolina to be with her parents while she continued recovering from surgery. Westmoreland leased an apartment pending her arrival at his new station. Soon it developed that she was also pregnant, and some complications after she came to Washington caused her to spend another period of time with her parents. In early June she finally made it back to Washington. "I have the road well reconnoitered to Walter Reed," Westmoreland wrote to his friend Bob Fergusson. In July 1954 a son was born. They named him James Ripley Westmoreland and called him variously "Rip," "the Ripper," and "the Ripster." A year and a half later there came a second daughter, whom they named Margaret Childs Westmoreland, thus completing the family.
EARLY IN THE new assignment Westmoreland became involved in intense work on the Fiscal Year 1955 budget. "Since reporting 10 days ago," Westmoreland wrote to a fellow officer, "I have been in a complete fog and still have only a vague idea of what people are talking about. If I could master this new language that has been created in this Pentagon atmosphere, and particularly in G-1, it would be a big help."
Three weeks into the new job Westmoreland wrote to his classmate "Bev" Powell, commanding the 11th Airborne Division artillery, that he could "now appreciate why G-1 is the target of such widespread criticism in the Army. A great percentage of their problems are of such a complicated nature that it is a question to select the better of many bad solutions. Consequently many people are naturally unhappy with any decision made." It seemed that, even this early on, General Palmer's plan was working.
ANOTHER ISSUE ENGAGING Westmoreland's attention during this period was reliance on a drafted army. Speaking at a military convention in mid-1954, he told the attendees that "each volunteer soldier we can add will reduce the draft calls and, by reducing the number of men serving two years of duty, will reduce wastefully rapid turnover and costly training." Thus, he concluded, "we will get more defense per man per dollar if we can get long-term volunteers and eliminate short-term draftees." He favored the all-volunteer approach on philosophical grounds as well, asking, "What then is the American way? Is not the volunteer theory a part of the very fabric and structure of our society?" That outlook would be worth recalling when, more than a decade later, an all-volunteer Army became a central issue when he was Army Chief of Staff.
Westmoreland developed a close and friendly relationship with Congressman Gerald Ford, who invited him to be a speaker in Grand Rapids, where he stayed with Ford's parents. When Ford was named to West Point's Board of Visitors, Westmoreland and Kitsy accompanied him and Mrs. Ford to the Military Academy. Later Westmoreland accompanied Ford on a trip to Europe, a ten-day jaunt that included stops at Heidelberg, Stuttgart, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris, where, Ford claimed, they stayed out all night together.
"I had not served there earlier, and I didn't want to serve there," Westmoreland said of the Pentagon in an oral history interview. But apparently the experience of doing so proved valuable, since a year or so into his G-1 duties he expressed to a friend a much different outlook. "In my opinion one has not received a full measure of education in the Army and the inner workings of our great democratic society until one serves a tour in Washington." In the meantime he had testified before Congressional committees, worked on budget development, and responded to in
numerable outside inquiries and petitions, all undeniably valuable experiences for those destined for greater responsibilities. But the frustrations were also very great. "Problems here in the Pentagon seem to repeat themselves on an annual cycle and never seem to get completely solved," he lamented.
The source of much of his frustration was Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, who was determined to reduce the Army's strength as a cost-cutting measure. Wilson ordered a succession of hundred-thousand-man cuts, increasingly draconian in their impact. "To back up his decisions," wrote Ernest Furgurson, "Wilson sent down a memorandum asserting that, given proper leadership and training, the Army could maintain its nineteen divisions with the number of men it had been allowed. General Matthew B. Ridgway, then chief of staff, felt personally insulted." Westmoreland came up with a scheme that, while admittedly "phony as hell," was intended to placate Wilson. It reorganized commands in Alaska and Panama under division designations, keeping the remaining seventeen divisions at or near their authorized strengths. "Wilson, who was most interested in having the nineteen divisions on paper as evidence that he could cut manpower without hurting capability, accepted it."1
DURING HIS ASSIGNMENT to Army G-1 Westmoreland was sent on temporary duty to attend Harvard University's three-month Advanced Management Program. "Although I feel extremely ill-prepared to participate in such activity," he told a fellow officer, "I am nevertheless keenly looking forward to the opportunity. Perhaps after being exposed to such a business atmosphere I will be able to better understand what they are talking about here in the Pentagon." It turned out to be an important experience for him. He got along well with his classmates, who were mostly up-and-coming civilian business executives, and maintained contact with a number of them in later years. In correspondence Westmoreland told one that he "attached much greater importance to the associations and friendships that I made than I did the brief academic exposure." But many years later he maintained the opposite, that "those 'new leaders' that I met had no influence on me although I liked them. That experience had no influence on my outlook." By that point more successful, Westmoreland was also less willing to acknowledge that he had ever needed help.