by Lewis Sorley
In a very generous gesture, another of the handful of military participants in the Harvard program, the Navy's Rear Admiral Robert Morris, wrote to Army Chief of Staff General Matthew Ridgway. He was doing so, he said, to let Ridgway know "what an excellent impression the Army's 'student' made on all hands. Brigadier General Westmoreland's contributions to the discussions were thoughtful, organized and well presented. West Point, the Army, and military affairs generally were well represented by this splendid officer."
AFTER A YEAR and a half in Army G-1, Westmoreland received a plum new assignment. General Maxwell Taylor, who in July 1955 became Army Chief of Staff, selected him as his Secretary of the General Staff. That "gatekeeper" function put Westmoreland in continuous contact with Taylor as one of the Chief's principal advisors and manager of the flow of paper, scheduling of briefings and conferences, and virtually all other aspects of his complex official life. Westmoreland said the SGS "attempts to shield [the Chief of Staff] from minutiae and to present actions in such a way as to simplify the making of decisions."2
A significant Taylor initiative was creation of what was called the Pentomic division. Westmoreland described how it had come about: "On one occasion [President Eisenhower] was conferring with General Taylor and he said, 'You have to do something to sex up the Army'—I am not sure he used that word—to give the Army more public charisma. And that brought about the Pentomic division." Westmoreland watched Taylor personally work it out, remembering how he would come in with diagrams he had drafted at home and give them to Westmoreland to send to the staff. "I was never enthusiastic about the Pentomic division concept," he recalled, "but General Taylor felt that he had to do something, something new, to give the Army a modern look."3 That look involved reorganizing divisions into five battle groups (replacing regiments and battalions), each commanded by a colonel, which could (it was theorized) be widely dispersed on a nuclear battlefield for force protection, then rapidly concentrated for offensive action.
"General Taylor and I had many theoretical discussions" on this concept, said Westmoreland. "I didn't agree with the Pentomic organization and later played a role in changing it. It was not sound in my opinion. It was not sufficiently flexible, nor was it a sufficiently cohesive system that would stand the stresses and strains of battlefield pressure. It was also short of infantry and short of artillery." (As things turned out, Taylor subsequently sent Westmoreland to command the 101st Airborne Division at just the time it was designated to reorganize as the Army's first Pentomic division.)
The situation Taylor inherited as Chief of Staff was a difficult one. "The Army was feeling sorry for itself," said General William DePuy, at that time a colonel assigned to an element of Westmoreland's office. "Because Ike thought he knew all about the Army, it was getting short shrift."4 One major element of this was downgrading the importance of ground forces generally and increasing reliance on a nuclear deterrent to discourage Soviet aggression. Along with the Pentomic division concept, the Army now began to talk about and plan for the use of tactical nuclear weapons. While he was SGS, Westmoreland went on the lecture circuit to make the case. "We must not work under any illusion that atomic weapons will not be used should it be to our advantage to do so," he argued. "Atomic weapons can be used with discrimination without resulting in a mutual thermonuclear exchange."5
DESPITE HIS MISGIVINGS about the Pentomic concept, Westmoreland was eager to implement Taylor's plans and programs, sometimes perhaps too eager. When Taylor remarked on one occasion that he didn't think it was a good idea for people assigned to the Army Staff to send Christmas cards to others in the local area, Westmoreland issued a directive on his own initiative forbidding such exchanges. That created something of a stir, not to mention much hilarity at Westmoreland's expense. Nor was the matter forgotten when, years later, Westmoreland himself became Chief of Staff and General Taylor wrote advising him to "be sure to get a SGS with a well-developed sense of public relations." On the file copy of Taylor's letter, sent from the White House, someone has written in red pen: "Referring to Xmas card letter."6
WESTMORELAND WAS NOTHING if not conscientious and exceptionally hard-working as Taylor's SGS. He would routinely get to the office at 7:00 A.M., where his cable man (who got there at 5:00) would have on his desk all the overnight cable traffic. Westmoreland screened the mass of material, selecting those cables he thought General Taylor should see, then went through them and underlined the key passages. Thus, he recalled, "in 15 minutes he could go through them and really grasp what went on. And then I would have breakfast at the Pentagon. I did that for almost three years in that job."
After Westmoreland had been SGS for a year and a half, General Taylor promoted him to major general. Westmoreland was forty-two, and said to be the youngest major general in the Army. He received the customary flood of congratulatory letters, noteworthy in his case for the large number coming from very senior officers, evidence of the extent to which he was now known throughout the Army and how well he had established himself with the top echelons. One of the most interesting came from Charley Askins, then with the MAAG in Indochina: "It is people like yourself who keep our Army preeminent, and despite the Air Force, the Republicans, the Congress and the mamas, will see it remains so."
Westmoreland annotated these letters in red pencil to show the salutation he wanted on the replies and what letter to send—Type A, Type B, Type C, in descending order of warmth and gratitude. His classmate Phil Gage, who reported class news to the West Point alumni magazine Assembly and was a near worshiper of Westmoreland, received only a Type C response.
One of Taylor's speechwriters at that time was Colonel Winant Sidle. He would later, as a major general, become Westmoreland's public affairs officer. Now he observed that Westmoreland's relationship with Taylor was "a little fearful, because [Westy] was not a great grammarian, and Taylor demanded perfect papers." On the personal side, observed Sidle, the relationship "was not close. Taylor was cool. Westmoreland had no chitchat. He was only comfortable when he had a topic to address."7
One positive approach Westmoreland displayed here, as he would in later assignments, was paying attention to people who had been largely neglected by his predecessors. Cary Shaw Jr., retiring from his post as a civilian personnel administrator, wrote to thank Westmoreland for his attentions. He had served for sixteen years in the Department of the Army, he said, and known scores of general officers. "But there are only a few, yourself included, who have impressed me in an extraordinary manner by demonstrating that rare combination of managerial skills and human understanding which is so essential to effective administration." Shaw closed by reminding Westmoreland of their first conference, when Westmoreland had extended the discussion for an hour and three-quarters. "That was more time than I had spent with all of your predecessors over a period of ten years," said Shaw.
THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER Westmoreland stayed in touch with his Boy Scout roots, serving while a young officer as a Scoutmaster at Fort Sill and then Schofield Barracks, then later in other positions. He was impressive enough in the aggregate that he was awarded the Silver Beaver and later the Silver Buffalo, a very high honor, by the Boy Scouts of America. Clearly the ideals of Scouting continued to mean a great deal to him. As SGS he wrote to Conrad Cleveland Jr., one of his closest friends in his youth and ever after and a fellow Scout in Troop 1 in Spartanburg: "In this troubled world in which we are living, I believe that the Boy Scout movement has taken on a higher degree of importance than has ever been the case in the past. The fact that the Scouts teach citizenship, courtesy, consideration of their associates, and leadership make them, as an organization, one of the great assets of our country."
7. Division Command
IN APRIL 1958, after nearly four and a half years in the Pentagon—"laborious years," he called them—Westmoreland received a splendid new assignment as Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division, the outfit Maxwell Taylor had commanded during World War II and one of the Army's elite units. "At G
eneral Westmoreland's assumption of command," remembered Lieutenant General Charles Bagnal, then a young officer in the division, "we had to pass in review in reverse order so that the 101st Airborne Division patches [worn on the left shoulder of the uniform] would show. We had to learn 'Eyes Left.'"
There had been considerable apprehension within the division, and particularly its staff, when they learned that Westmoreland was coming to take command. Major General Thomas L. Sherburne Jr., who had led the 101st since its reactivation in May 1956, was highly esteemed. The contrast with Westmoreland, thought an aide to the division commander, was going to be traumatic. In place of the broad-gauged and imaginative Sherburne they were going to get "a man who fulfilled every stereotype."1 That outlook presaged a commander expected to be doctrinaire, rigid, and pedestrian in his approach.
Westmoreland inherited a top-notch organization, "the finest outfit I ever served in," according to a young officer in the division during Sherburne's tenure and who then served for a short time as an aide to Westmoreland. "The soldiers were all volunteers, and most were Regular Army. They were committed. It was a fantastic division, really crackerjack."
JUST THREE WEEKS after Westmoreland took command, there occurred a tragic and controversial event: a mass parachute jump during Exercise Eagle Wing in which high winds resulted in seven men being dragged to their death on the drop zone. As many as 137 others were injured.
Brigadier General Weldon F. Honeycutt, then a captain and Westmoreland's senior aide, remembers it this way: "We're all chuted up and ready to go. The lead elements jumped, and the wind gusted up about 8–10 miles per hour more, just when the first lift was about halfway down. They told Westmoreland not to jump, but we went anyway. He got dragged all across the place. I collapsed his chute."2
Major General John Singlaub, then a lieutenant colonel, was the Division G-3 (Operations Officer). "Westmoreland was a part of the jump," he recalls. "He was on the second wave. The question was whether we should jump or not. I said we should go in. It would be a disaster if, after the accident, the division commander didn't jump."3
Westmoreland addressed this accident in his memoirs, saying that he jumped after the first unit on that same day, then devoting much of a very brief account to his own difficulties: "As I came to earth, an unanticipated wind approaching twenty miles per hour dragged me joltingly across the ground. Even though I managed on occasion to get to my feet, gusts threw me down again and again. The wind dragged me several hundred yards before others who had landed ahead of me were able to collapse my parachute." Then: "Only later did I learn that the wind had dragged seven men to their deaths."4
There is no word of concern or compassion for those unfortunates or their families. What follows immediately is this: "Since training even under adverse conditions is essential to a unit's preparations for battle, I wanted to continue the maneuver the next day; but with wind conditions for a jump still doubtful, I decided to make the first jump myself and on my experience base a decision whether to proceed. After a hard landing, the wind again seized my parachute and dragged me across a rough field until some of my men succeeded in collapsing the chute." So, says Westmoreland, he called off the additional jump.5
Aides of Westmoreland's at the time agree that he made such a jump but that—as one described it—"he sort of dressed up his role later as he told it (and the calls were coming in)."6 Those calls, a virtual flood of them, were from senior government officials and members of Congress, questioning Westmoreland's judgment in allowing the jump to take place under the prevailing conditions. That subsequent jump, and Westmoreland's characterization of it, concluded his aide, "was in fact a large part of his assurance later to the Pentagon and politicians that the decision had been 'within limits' as far as good judgment was concerned (together with the need to prepare for tough contingencies in time of war)."7
At this time Westmoreland's classmate General Bruce Palmer Jr. was serving in Washington as Assistant Secretary of the General Staff, in the same office where Westmoreland had been assigned before going to the 101st. "When they had that terrible jump accident at Fort Campbell," recalled Palmer, "Secretary of the Army Wilber Brucker wanted to relieve General Westmoreland for poor judgment." Also, said Palmer, "the Under Secretary of the Army, a man named Milton, was all for relieving Westmoreland." Hugh M. Milton II was a retired reserve major general and quite influential with President Eisenhower, so his views carried unusual weight for a sub-cabinet officer. Palmer said he tried to dissuade the two officials and that Colonel Fred Weyand, Brucker's executive officer, also argued against relief. "I never told Westy that I had helped keep him from losing his job," said Palmer.8
For several days it was unclear what Westmoreland's fate would be. Martin Hoffmann, an aide, sat in the commanding general's office and made notes of numerous meetings and telephone calls, many with members of Congress. The young officer noted Westmoreland's "technique of pushing. He never gave the slightest indication of any fault on his part. He had a way of creating a truth in his own behalf that, while improbable, was not totally incredible. He had a way of filling that gap in ways large and small." Of course eventually Westmoreland got off the hook for the disastrous jump, an outcome Hoffmann saw as significantly determined by "opportunistic interventions by influential members of Congress."9
Westmoreland's final word on the accident was rendered in an oral history interview conducted in 1978. "It turned out to be a pretty good maneuver despite the initial tragedy," he said. "So my indoctrination and introduction to the 101st was very traumatic and very sad. The event became national news."10
ESTABLISHING WARM AND CLOSE relationships with influential citizens in nearby communities was a high priority for Westmoreland, and he did very well with that, organizing and hosting various events at which the activities of the division could be showcased. A county commissioner from Tennessee who at Westmoreland's invitation attended a Fort Campbell event, one featuring squirrel stew, was so impressed that he wrote to Secretary of the Army Brucker to say of Westmoreland: "It is phenomenal the knowledge and background that this general has of the personnel in his command." Another local citizen was so taken with Westmoreland's performance on a special project that he too went all the way to the top, writing to the Army Chief of Staff to report that "the recent Girl Scout cookie sale [at] Fort Campbell set an almost unbelievable record," an outcome he attributed "chiefly to the example set by General Westmoreland."
David Halberstam, then a young reporter in Nashville, saw Westmoreland for the first time when he was making a speech at some civic affair. Westmoreland made it a practice on such occasions to have an enlisted man accompany him with the division mascot, an eagle (of course). "With almost anyone else it might have seemed hokey," recalled Halberstam, "but with Westmoreland—his bearing so proud, his posture so ramrod straight—it seemed quite natural. He already was marked as a rising star in the Army."11
Concerned to improve the competence of junior leaders in the division, Westmoreland organized what he called Recondo School (a name derived from a combination of "reconnaissance" and "commando"). He put Major Lewis Millett, a Medal of Honor holder, in charge and directed a program that stressed patrolling, map reading, survival, and other fundamentals of fieldcraft.12 Rifle squad and fire team leaders were among the first to be enrolled.
Westmoreland still liked to talk to the troops, and to keep them informed about what was going on in the division and why they were doing it. Observed one young officer, "Some soldiers might not know their battle group commander, but they all knew their division commander."
Colonel Thomas McKenna had a dramatic recollection of one of these occasions after an act of terrible violence. "General Westmoreland liked to stand on the hood of a jeep and talk to the troops assembled around him," said McKenna. "When I was in the 101st at Fort Campbell and he was division commander, some dumb troopers raped a local woman and there was bad town-post feeling. Westmoreland came to our battle group on his rounds, stood on a jeep
hood, and gave a speech that included, 'When the sun goes down the airborne trooper's brain shrinks to the size of a pea and his penis grows to three feet long!'" Added McKenna, "That sort of colorful speech has disappeared now that there are so many women in the Army."13
A CERTAIN FASCINATION with and belief in the usefulness of statistical indicators surfaced during Westmoreland's command of the division. He later described how he had worked up a system where "we had some type of crude measure for everything, and every month I would have a council with all my commanders and I put on the chart and I had them all compared." Those sessions must have been an ordeal for some of the officers involved, as Westmoreland acknowledged. "They didn't like that. They didn't like to be exposed when they fell short. But I had data compiled and called it the command data system."14
Ever since his short course at the Harvard Business School, Westmoreland had made it a point to seek efficiencies in management and budget wherever he was assigned. At Fort Campbell he christened such a program "Operation Overdrive." Shortly before finishing his command tour in the 101st Westmoreland made the rounds of several Army headquarters and schools, briefing his findings based on Overdrive. These presentations included stops at the Army Management School, at Headquarters of the Continental Army Command, and even at the Bureau of the Budget. Ticking off items on a list of twelve conclusions he had reached, Westmoreland asserted that work measurement was practical and productive in technical service post activities and troop units, that personnel administration was complicated and needed major revision, and that production suffered from "too much emphasis on police and eyewash."15