by Lewis Sorley
In the autumn of 1967 Rip, entering eighth grade, was enrolled in the Hawaii Preparatory Academy at Kamuela, the beginning of what proved to be an extended ordeal for him. Soon he dispatched a three-page letter, in pencil on lined paper, to his mother. "It's time to tell the truth about this place," he began. "Well... I Hate it here. I don't have one friend. This school isn't worth as much as you're paying. I cry every night. I hate everybody here I hate it."
Another letter revealed some of the underlying, and desperately sad, causes of Rip's unhappiness. "People are saying things about Dad now." Rip almost got in a fight with another boy because of it. "This guy says his father told him that's why we're losing the war."
Stevie, now in college, had her own doubts about the war. Westmoreland wrote her a three-page typed letter in which he began: "It appears to be smart in college circles these days to question our government's policy in Vietnam and I gather that you are beginning to follow the same pattern." He sought to reassure her, maintaining that "the senior officials who are making policy are conscientious, dedicated and wise men who are going to weigh all the factors and balance the manifold contributions before arriving at policy decisions. Such has been the case with regard to our national policy in Southeast Asia." There was more along those lines, then some final advice. "I would suggest that you not follow the popular example of criticizing government policy but should acquire the facts and develop an insight that would give you a better appreciation of the basis of the policy which I believe in most cases will intellectually support it. In short, I certainly agree that you should think for yourself but at the same time should refrain from being influenced by emotional currents born of immaturity and ignorance."
Things were better for Margaret, the only child still in the Philippines with Kitsy. "Margaret is very happy with her pony and spends most of her time down at the stables taking care of it," Westmoreland wrote to Rip.
ONE OF WESTMORELAND'S strongest tendencies was to personalize virtually everything. He described Otto Kerner as "a man who served me admirably during the early days of World War II." To Lieutenant General W. R. Peers, about to retire, he wrote that "the job that you did for me in Vietnam was outstanding in every respect." Of Major General Daniel Graham, an intelligence officer, he said, "Danny served me admirably as a colonel in J-2 of MACV." When McNamara came to Saigon, said Westmoreland, he "visited me." The RMK engineering consortium had constructed "my new headquarters." Ambassador Lodge came to say good-bye to "my staff." And when Lieutenant General John Heintges, Westmoreland's West Point classmate, arrived in Vietnam to become the deputy, Westmoreland dictated for his history that "General Heintges was obviously pleased and flattered that he had been selected for the important assignment as my deputy."
The sense that everything somehow revolved around himself comes through most strongly in the history notes, but also in correspondence and cables and in the coaching he gave Charles MacDonald when the memoirs were being put together. At a Mission Council meeting, "the staff gave a special presentation on the number of piasters that have been saved as a result of the aggressive program I initiated several months ago." After an address to some mobile training teams, he observed, "there is every indication that my remarks, which were forcefully delivered, made an impression on the cross-section of Vietnamese officers representing every corps and division." He had to do it all: "With so many things to be done with so few troops, I had to get involved in details that a supreme commander would ordinarily leave to subordinates." Regarding his long tenure, "After three years in-country, my institutional memory was tremendously valuable to subordinate commanders whose experience was less."
Westmoreland also repeatedly micromanaged, getting involved in low-level decisions relating to such matters as minor aspects of the construction program. At one point, for example, he "made a decision to shift the crushed rock and the earth-moving equipment" from an airfield, where work had already begun, to "construction of an Army ammunition depot, an Army warehouse area, and an Air Force bomb dump." Westmoreland viewed this matter as important enough to be recorded in his history file, as was a decision to modify specifications for a planned runway, reducing the width by fifty feet and the thickness by several inches, even—rather bizarrely, or so it seems—referring the airfield decision to Secretary of Defense McNamara. It is virtually impossible to imagine Eisenhower's asking the Secretary of War to approve such a matter during his war, or his even knowing about it.
An area of considerable interest, one often raised and stressed by Westmoreland, was the functioning of an effective inspector general system in MACV. There is great disparity between his own self-congratulatory accounts of the matter and the recollections of others who were centrally involved. Given some of the fairly disastrous occurrences during Westmoreland's command—such as the My Lai massacre, a clubs and messes scandal, and the involvement in racketeering of Westmoreland's own nominee to be Sergeant Major of the Army, none of which was identified by inspectors general before becoming public scandals—the validity of Westmoreland's claims is of considerable importance.
Reflecting on his experience during World War II, Westmoreland concluded that "more emphasis should be placed on the IG, that the IG should be given more emphasis by command." In particular, he stressed, the IG's function should be to concentrate on "detecting trends toward improper conduct rather than totally concentrating on investigating items when evidence was surfaced that something was not right." And, he stated, "I did that in Vietnam. We had the most extensive IG system that we've ever had in a theater of combat."13 Testifying years later in the trial of a libel suit he brought against CBS (a matter to be examined later in this account), Westmoreland again made such claims, asserting that "when I took command in Vietnam, as I had done in other commands, I... put more emphasis on the inspector general than I think has ever been done by a field command."14
In August 1967 Colonel Robert Cook arrived in Vietnam to become the new MACV Inspector General. He was welcomed by Major General Walter Kerwin, the MACV Chief of Staff, and also had a brief conversation with the Deputy COMUSMACV. Then, he recalled, he went back to "look at my empire there, and there's me, another colonel, two lieutenant colonels, and four enlisted people."15 Westmoreland had by then been in command for more than three years, and that was the extent of the "most extensive IG system."16
Cook had served with the Deputy COMUSMACV during World War II, and in the IG slot he again worked very closely with him, extending into the years when the Deputy moved up to be COMUSMACV. Within a year of Cook's becoming MACV IG, the handful of staffers he inherited had grown to 96 officers and about 170 enlisted men.17 Later, at the peak of his tenure, it reached about 90 field grade officers, including 13 full colonels, and a stable of Vietnamese translators—about 400 people in all.18 In a Military History Institute oral history interview Cook was asked about the apparent discrepancy between Westmoreland's claims of a robust IG system and what Cook found when he arrived in Vietnam. "The point is," he said, "to be quite frank, General Westmoreland wrote glorious papers and philosophical type stuff. But the problem was the implementation afterward. For example, before I got there, he wrote a big paper about setting up a comprehensive Inspector General system and so on. Then when I got there, there were four people sitting around. They didn't have the manpower—they were willing, but they didn't have the assets, didn't have the qualifications.... Really nothing going."19 Reemphasizing the point in a later interview, Cook observed that what "General Westmoreland was prone to do was to have a grandiose idea and put it on paper, and then never do anything more about it."20
AS COMUSMACV WESTMORELAND traveled incessantly. In his memoirs he described his typical routine in Vietnam as beginning each day with twenty-five pushups, then visiting units in the field several days a week. On such trips he often took along some member of the media. These visits were a big part of Westmoreland's persona and a source of pride to him as well. "My mobility paid big dividends," he told Charles MacDonald. "My
staff had no opportunity to get out as I did. Staff needed the feel of the field which I could provide." And: "Because there were so many things to be done with limited numbers of troops, I personally had to be an action officer and move troops around like checkers." From these and numerous other self-characterizations emerges a portrait of someone who viewed himself as indispensable.
Westmoreland later told military affairs correspondent S.L.A. Marshall that he made "almost daily visits to the field" during his command in Vietnam. The stated purposes of all the travel were to gain information and buck up the troops. This was an enormous expenditure of time and energy, clearly Westmoreland's own personal highest priority among the many claims on his attention, yet it is not clear what he learned or accomplished as a result. Possibly he contributed to good morale on the part of the troops he visited, but he missed a lot of important things that would seem to have been fairly obvious.
One was the malperformance of the M551 Sheridan, a lightly armored vehicle sometimes described as a "light tank." This new system was not yet perfected and quickly manifested many problems. The crews considered it highly vulnerable to mines and rocket-propelled grenades, and the supposedly combustible cases for the 152mm main gun rounds did not perform as advertised, resulting in some sporty moments for crewmen sharing the turret with flaming residuals. Westmoreland was apparently unaware of any of this, later writing with near-perfect inaccuracy to Congressman William Dickinson that "use of the combustible cartridge case with the closed breach scavenger system has proved highly effective" and that "the Sheridan has performed very well in Vietnam where it enjoys a high level of troop confidence."21 That was total fantasy.
Another important matter that apparently escaped Westmoreland's notice was the very effective use the South Vietnamese armed forces were making of armored vehicles, especially the armored personnel carrier. They devised modifications of the APCs that transformed them almost into light tanks, then used them extensively for convoy security, overwatching fire, even jungle busting. Given Westmoreland's personal antipathy to armored forces, or at least to their employment in Vietnam, he might have learned some useful things had he been more observant. He also apparently missed how woefully underarmed the South Vietnamese were in comparison to the enemy, or didn't think that was important or a problem.
At I Field Force, Vietnam, a corps-level U.S. headquarters in Nha Trang, Lieutenant General Charles P. Graham (then a lieutenant colonel) was the G-3 Plans Officer. In that position he on occasion briefed the visiting Westmoreland. "After the briefing, he would issue some instructions," said Graham. "Each time he did so, I had a strong feeling that he was shooting from the hip, had no overall strategic plan that guided his decisions, and was issuing instructions because he felt as the senior commander he should do something."22
Lieutenant General Walter Ulmer recalled, while he was serving as a more junior officer in MACV J-3, going in with a colleague to brief Westmoreland on some matter. "We got into a discussion of mortars versus artillery," he said, "and I observed that General Westmoreland's capacity for handling cognitive complexity was severely limited."23
Major General Clay Buckingham was, as a junior officer, a sector advisor in Hau Nghia, a small province directly west of Saigon on the Cambodian border. In those days, he remembered, the province was "flooded with Viet Cong. They owned the night and disappeared during the day." On a given occasion Westmoreland came out by chopper to get a briefing. Buckingham recalled how he "came into our dilapidated hootch and sat in a small circle with my four or five officers and two or three key NCOs." Buckingham introduced his staff members and gave a little background on each. One of the officers was a man named Jim Kernan, who had been football captain at West Point. Buckingham briefed Westmoreland on the situation and told him they were not making much progress. The Viet Cong were everywhere, and the Regional and Popular Forces just could not cope with them. Westmoreland "seemed not to hear. At the end of my short briefing, without any comment to me, he turned to Jim Kernan and talked about Army football for maybe 20 minutes. Then he got up and left."24
On another occasion, described by Westmoreland in his memoirs, he visited the barracks of a U.S. unit and observed that the bulletin board was mounted on a wall of female pin-ups. He asked the lieutenant in charge if he required his men to read the bulletin board, and of course the answer was that he did. Westmoreland then "rebuked" him, saying that "somebody might object" to having to view such female pulchritude in the course of reading the daily orders. At that point an accompanying brigadier, Joe Stilwell Jr., stepped in to help out his young subordinate. "By God, sir, you are right," he said. "We'll poll the unit, and if we find somebody who objects, we'll have him transferred."25
Brigadier General Edwin Simmons, later the long-serving Chief of Marine Corps History, recalled a commanders' conference convened by Westmoreland at Nha Trang. The room was filled with senior officers who had served in World War II and Korea, and Westmoreland told them: "At the end of World War II I wrote down some principles of war. I have them still today—on a card I carry in my wallet, and I want to share them with you. Whenever possible, feed the troops a hot meal. Make sure they have dry socks, and check their feet. Stress getting the troops their mail." The audience had thought they were about to get the equivalent of Napoleon's maxims or the like, said Simmons, "and instead they got these platitudes of squad leading."26
One of the primary stated purposes of all the travel was to boost the morale of the troops, but Westmoreland often seemed oblivious to the human factor. A stunning example occurred during a visit to the 2nd ARVN Division at Quang Ngai for presentation of a Silver Star for valor to Colonel Toan. Westmoreland entered what happened next in his history notes, apparently seeing nothing wrong with the picture presented. "After the ceremony," he said, "we went into Toan's office where he served champagne in celebration of his award. During this period I look[ed] around and observed that we had the entire Vietnamese and American chains of command, from Saigon to Danang, to the 2nd ARVN Division and their counterparts in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin Provinces, and therefore suggested to General Vien that we remove the champagne and have a conference."
Colonel Carl Ulsaker, an advisor, was also at Toan's award ceremony, and he remembered the aftermath: "The champagne turned warm and lost its bubbles as Westmoreland droned on, and he didn't discuss anything worth a damn. He was just so insensitive to people."27
At other times in his travels Westmoreland sought to shape how events, especially those in combat situations, were understood and portrayed. Visiting an evacuation hospital where casualties of a recent engagement were being treated, he encountered 1st Sergeant "Bud" Barrow of Delta Company, 2/28 Infantry. Westmoreland asked him how he had been wounded. "Well, sir," he responded, "we walked into one of the damnedest ambushes you have ever seen." Those words were anathema to Westmoreland. "Oh, no, no, no," he protested. "That was no ambush." "Call it what you want to," said Barrow. "I don't know what happened to the rest of the people, but, by God, I was ambushed."28
This picture of Westmoreland, fond of uniforms from his early days, was inscribed "I am ready now" in the family archives. Margaret Clarkson Collection
Westmoreland and his only sibling, his younger sister Margaret. Their father managed a textile mill in semirural South Carolina, affording them what a schoolmate remembered as a rather isolated, comfortable, and secure world in which to grow up. South Caroliniana Library
LEFT: An Eagle Scout at age fifteen, Westmoreland attended a World Scout Jamboree in England. It was for him a life-changing experience, providing his first look at the wider expanse beyond the confi nes of his youth. South Caroliniana Library
BELOW RIGHT: First Captain of the Corps of Cadets, Vice President of the class, and head of the Cadet Sunday School Teachers. The 1936 Howitzer
BELOW: Westmoreland's first assignment was in the 18th Field Artillery at Fort Sill, where he found they were still armed with "antiquated" horse-drawn 75mm guns and that the soldiers "c
ould barely read or write." South Caroliniana Library
ABOVE: Equitation was an important part of Army life before World War II. Westmoreland became an enthusiastic horseman, learning to play polo and acquiring a private horse in addition to his issue mount. South Caroliniana Library
LEFT: During combat in Tunisia early in World War II, the 34th Field Artillery earned a Presidential Unit Citation under Westmoreland's vigorous command. South Caroliniana Library
Serving in the 9th Infantry Division, Westmoreland became executive officer of the division artillery and then, promoted to colonel, chief of staff of the division as it took part in the Normandy invasion and subsequent fighting across Europe. South Caroliniana Library
Assigned to Fort Bragg after the war, Westmoreland married Katherine "Kitsy" Van Deusen, an Army brat he first met at Fort Sill when she was nine years old. South Caroliniana Library
During the late stages of the Korean War, Westmoreland (here with Lt. Gen. Maxwell Taylor) commanded the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team and was promoted to brigadier. U.S. Army photo by Jack Phillips
Moving up in Army ranks, Westmoreland was given a plum assignment as Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell. South Caroliniana Library
LEFT: During 1960–1963 Westmoreland served as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he is shown with Kitsy and their children, Stevie, Margaret, and Rip. South Caroliniana Library