Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam

by Lewis Sorley

  BELOW: After a short stint in command of XVIII Airborne Corps, Westmoreland was ordered to Vietnam as Deputy Commander of U.S. forces. En route he stopped in South Carolina to visit his father, mother, and sister. The State

  In June 1964 Westmoreland moved up to be Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor and Kitsy pinned on his fourth star. South Caroliniana Library

  Initially families were allowed in Saigon, but as the war expanded they were evacuated. Kitsy and the children (Margaret, Rip, and Stevie) moved first to Hawaii, then to the Philippines, during three and a half years of separation from Westmoreland save what short visits he could arrange. South Caroliniana Library

  LEFT: Major General (later General) William DePuy was an important associate, the architect of the "search and destroy" tactics employed by Westmoreland and then Commanding General of 1st Infantry Division. He impressed Westmoreland with his belief in "the importance of massive firepower" in the conduct of the war. U.S. Army Military History Institute

  RIGHT: Beginning in 1965, in response to repeated Westmoreland requests, large contingents of U.S. ground forces were sent to Vietnam. Here, in what he called "a favorite stance," Westmoreland addresses troops from the hood of a jeep. U.S. Army Center of Military History

  LEFT: Kitsy, like many waiting wives, was concerned that her husband was missing the years in which his children were growing up. "Deep down," she concluded, "I know that's exactly what is happening." Here, she and the children prepare for Christmas, superintended by Hannah, the family dog. South Caroliniana Library

  13. Body Count

  WESTMORELAND OFTEN MAINTAINED that "our purpose was to defeat the enemy and pacify the country, and the country couldn't be pacified until the enemy was defeated." In his terms, defeated meant killed, which in turn established body count as the measure of merit in this war.

  Inevitably controversy arose over the reliability of the body count and—even in those cases where the count matched the number of bodies left on the battlefield—whether all those killed had in fact been enemy rather than innocent South Vietnamese civilians. Westmoreland was very sensitive to such charges and for years publicly maintained faith in the accuracy of the body counts reported by his forces. "I believe one of the great distortions of the war has been the allegation that casualties inflicted on the enemy are padded," he asserted. "I can categorically state that such is not the case."1 That was not, however, his private belief, for as early as August 1965 he had cabled General Wheeler that in MACV "we have taken the position that KIA figures are inflated and are sufficiently accurate only to indicate trends in battle casualties."2

  A large majority of Westmoreland's generals were basically appalled by body count, as documented by Douglas Kinnard's survey. In fact, 61 percent of the respondents thought body count was "often inflated," and that question, reported Kinnard, "brought forth a torrent of comment from the generals." Among the examples he cited were these: "They were grossly exaggerated by many units primarily because of the incredible interest shown by people like McNamara and Westmoreland." "Often blatant lies." "A fake—totally worthless." It should be emphasized that these were not the views of antiwar critics, or even rank-and-file observers, but the conclusions of Army general officers who had commanded in Vietnam.3

  Westmoreland's fallback position was that, even if the reports of body count were inflated, they were ultimately probably accurate, perhaps even understated, because of enemy deaths caused by unobserved effects of bombing and artillery and those who later died of wounds. While he was Chief of Staff, Westmoreland spoke to this issue during an appearance on the CBS television program Face the Nation. Asked whether he believed the body counts, Westmoreland said, "I was aware of the fact that there was some double counting from time to time, no doubt from time to time some inaccurate reports." But, he added, it was the assessment of his staff, an assessment with which he agreed, that "offsetting any exaggeration" would be those other losses.4

  Undoubtedly there were such uncounted losses, but Westmoreland was apparently not troubled by the ethical question of false reporting by his chain of command. There is substantial evidence that in some places, perhaps many, unit commanders were made to compete with one another on the basis of reported body count. Josiah Bunting's 1973 roman à clef, The Lionheads, describes such pressures and the agonizing dilemmas they created in a thinly disguised 9th Infantry Division.

  There was yet another problem with Westmoreland's metric. If the enemy replaced his real losses, then those reported losses had little or no significance in terms of "progress" in the war or improved prospects for its successful conclusion. The fighting simply continued at the same level against an equal, or perhaps even larger, number of enemy forces.

  Later Robert McNamara described his skepticism regarding the reported body count. "The point is that it didn't add up," he recalled. "If you took the strength figures and the body count, the defections, the infiltration and what was happening to us, the whole thing didn't make—didn't add up."5 Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, who took up his post in Saigon in March 1967, was even less impressed, questioning whether body count, even if accurate, had any utility as a measure of progress in the war. "Well," he said, "I think body count is not a very good way of calculating progress in the war."6

  By the time the war was over Westmoreland had reverted to his original position, that body counts were reliable and accurate. "All I can say," he told the BBC, "is they were the most honest estimates that we could make."7 Later he reconsidered yet again, saying during a news conference at Vanderbilt University that "great emphasis was placed on accuracy of reporting," but that he was sure "in many cases [the body counts] were exaggerated."

  DURING A FEBRUARY 1966 conference in Honolulu a very important marker was laid down by McNamara, a set of six statistical indicators of progress that Westmoreland was tasked to achieve by the end of the year. One involving body count was central: "Attrite, by year's end (the communist) forces at a rate as high as their capability to put men into the field."8 This meant, in other words, reaching the much-discussed "crossover point," where the enemy's losses exceeded his ability to replace them through infiltration from the north or recruitment in the south. This tasking would assume enormous importance during the 1967 "Progress Offensive," and again after the war when Westmoreland launched a libel suit. Richard Holbrooke observed that "this crossover point was terribly important to Westmoreland and to his command. He kept waiting for it. He kept looking for it. It had a profound influence on the well advertised, much debated question of the enemy order of battle."9

  LBJ also attended that Honolulu conference. Westmoreland recalled that "in private talks with me, President Johnson seemed intense, perturbed, uncertain how to proceed with the Vietnam problem, torn by the apparent magnitude of it."10 It was during this conference that the President made two famous comments to Westmoreland. "General, I have a lot riding on you," he stressed at one point, and then, alluding to the problems President Truman had with General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War (problems that, as both Johnson and Westmoreland knew very well, led to Truman's relieving MacArthur from his post), "I hope you don't pull a MacArthur on me." In his memoirs, recalling that rather dramatic moment with the President, Westmoreland wrote that "since I had no intention of crossing him in any way, I chose to make no response."11

  The Pentagon Papers, describing this conference, quoted Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge's remarks in a plenary session: "We can beat up North Vietnamese regiments in the high plateau for the next twenty years and it will not end the war—unless we and the Vietnamese are able to build simple but solid political institutions under which a proper police can function and a climate [can be] created in which economic and social revolution, in freedom, are possible."12 Among those who heard Lodge express these convictions were General Nguyen Van Thieu and Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky of South Vietnam. Westmoreland's later dismissive comment was that "Ambassador Lodge does not have a
deep feel of military tactics and strategy."

  Summing up the results of the conference, the Pentagon Papers noted that, from that time forward, "it was open and unmistakable U.S. policy to support pacification and the 'other war,' and those who saw these activities as unimportant or secondary had to submerge their sentiments under a cloud of rhetoric."13 Westmoreland acted accordingly.

  Before returning to Vietnam Westmoreland held a press conference in Honolulu. Asked how the war was going, he responded: "I am very optimistic at this time," citing body count achieved as the basis. Westmoreland also blithely stated that enemy guerrillas could be dealt with and local security established "once these main force units are destroyed." That fatal miscalculation persisted throughout his tenure in command.

  Another major conference was held in Honolulu in July of 1966, during which various briefings were presented, including one by Admiral Sharp's staff on progress made in reaching the six goals set at the February conference, especially prospects for reaching the crossover point by the end of the year. "This goal is unlikely to be achieved," said the briefer, "because of the enemy's demonstrated ability to increase his forces despite losses."

  Ambassador Lodge had commented on precisely that point in an 8 June 1966 cable to LBJ: "The best estimate is that 20,000 men of the Army of North Vietnam have come into South Vietnam since January and, as far as I can learn, we can't find them."14 Frustrated, Westmoreland sent a memorandum to his major subordinate commanders stating: "I am increasingly concerned about the fact that we are not engaging the VC with sufficient frequency or effectiveness to win the war in Vietnam. The VC/PAVN buildup is continuing and our attrition of their forces in South Vietnam is insufficient to offset this buildup."15

  Yet another in this year of conferences, this one a seven-nation summit, was convened in Manila in late October 1966. Afterward President Johnson headed for Vietnam, where he spent, as all the press reports carefully noted, two hours and twenty-four minutes at Cam Ranh Bay. During the stop he awarded Westmoreland a Distinguished Service Medal for his leadership of U.S. forces in the war.

  Despite the cruel math and ineffective strategy, Westmoreland was at that point riding high. Later he told Charles MacDonald of his pleasure at how he had been treated by the President in Manila: "Nice touch for LBJ to make me the senior military officer at the conference. He did not bring Wheeler, or Sharp, said he wanted me, put me in the center of the military stage, to be the one who spoke." Back in the United States, LBJ underwent his celebrated gallbladder operation and from Bethesda Naval Hospital wrote to Westmoreland: "When it [victory in Southeast Asia] comes, you will stand first in the ranks of those your countrymen will celebrate. You already stand first in your President's affection and esteem."

  WESTMORELAND'S RELATIONS WITH the media form an important subtext in any account of his experience in Vietnam and, indeed, of his career in general. He courted reporters and journalists assiduously, but seemed baffled by lack of the good press for which he thirsted. Said his aide Dave Palmer, "I had instructions from Westmoreland that when he was traveling I was to have a reporter or a USAID person or Sir Robert Thompson [a British counterinsurgency expert] or the like with him." In such encounters, said Palmer of Westmoreland, "he was very compelling." Sometimes, instead of the single media target of Westmoreland's attention, there would be a large entourage. In a letter to his wife Palmer described a trip of that type, a flight on an Army Caribou aircraft in which "the cargo compartment was jam-packed with Mr. Lodge, Gen. Westmoreland, a colonel, me, and 27 reporters of all nationalities and descriptions." Another officer recalled how Westmoreland stage-managed interviews at his headquarters, changing into jungle fatigues (field uniforms) beforehand if he had been wearing something less picturesque.

  Sensitivity to press coverage and public relations was one of Westmoreland's most pronounced traits. Even when a matter involved serious ethical or disciplinary issues, Westmoreland's first—and often only—concern was how it would play in the press. The jump fatalities soon after he took command at Fort Campbell were one dramatic example. Another took place soon after major American ground forces entered the war in Vietnam. Westmoreland was shown a number of pictures, taken by an Associated Press photographer, depicting South Vietnamese using torture to interrogate prisoners of war. In several of the photos U.S. Marines were also shown, although they were not actively participating in the mistreatment of captives. Westmoreland cabled his guidance to Major General Lewis Walt, then the senior Marine in Vietnam: "We should attempt to avoid photographs being taken of these incidents of torture and most certainly in any case try to keep Americans out of the picture."16

  From his earliest days in Vietnam Westmoreland had been critical of how the war was being reported. "In my opinion, the press has done a poor job in relaying to the American public a realistic feel of the situation here," he wrote to Robert Stevens in June 1964. "They seem to accept the bad and unhappy events with very little attention given to the other side of the ledger." At various times Westmoreland spoke of the press as negative, cynical, vicious, and immature.

  Westmoreland's key associate, General William DePuy, located the problem somewhat closer to home. "Neither the public nor the media had the slightest conception of the scope or intensity of the war," he concluded. "We in the military failed miserably in portraying the war for what it was."17

  Barry Zorthian, who headed the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office in Saigon, maintained that "when Westmoreland took over he was under very strong pressure from Washington to straighten out the media." But, he said, in his dealings with reporters Westmoreland was "quite pedantic. He tended to lecture the newsmen."18

  George Wilson, longtime military affairs correspondent for the Washington Post and less hostile to Westmoreland than most reporters, identified Westmoreland's demeanor as part of the problem, recalling that "Westy was the stiff, ceremonial-looking general who sounded platitudinous in the formal press conferences he tolerated."19 And there were a lot of formal press conferences. The press, said General "Dutch" Kerwin, for over a year Westmoreland's MACV Chief of Staff, "were alienated by General Westmoreland, there is no doubt about it."20

  Nevertheless journalistic assessments of Westmoreland continued to be mostly favorable through 1966. "In this modern and political conflict," wrote Don Moser for Life, "Westmoreland is so strikingly uncontemporary that meeting him is a little like stumbling across a live dinosaur." As evidence of that judgment, Moser said that Westmoreland was "methodical rather than clever, organized rather than intellectual, and outside of military affairs no one has ever called him sophisticated," a man "no more inclined to profanity than, say, Tarzan."

  Letting Westmoreland speak for himself, Moser's piece quoted his recent remarks to some of the troops: "We're going to out-guerrilla the guerrilla and out-ambush the ambush," he told them. "And we're going to learn better than he ever did because we're smarter, we have greater mobility and firepower, we have more endurance and more to fight for." "And we've got more guts."21 That these anticipatory achievements were being cited some two and a half years into Westmoreland's command tended to undercut their impact considerably, however, as did Moser's report of "nervously" sensing "a kind of resemblance between Westmoreland and the focal character of Graham Greene's best-selling novel The Quiet American, that wholesome and well-intentioned type who, out of his naïve idealism, generates a tragedy for those whom he would help."22

  Westmoreland explained how a perceived negative media outlook drove him and other government officials to overstate their case in the opposite direction. They "realized that some of these negative stories were giving an improper perspective, and it was only natural that they and the Ambassador and myself were very anxious to balance this picture by putting forth the positive when the press became the proponents of the negative."23

  Several years after his Vietnam service Westmoreland was even more candid, explaining how, "during 1967 and 1968 a polarization situation occurred in Saigon. The media were in
clined to accentuate the negative. To balance the picture, the U.S. authorities in Saigon were prone and encouraged by Washington to accentuate the positive."24 Perhaps this situation led to such occasions as a Westmoreland visit to the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry, recalled with distaste by James Parker. When the unit was advised of an impending Westmoreland visit, word went out that "the COMUSMACV is coming to walk among his people" and to hand out some Silver Stars. Since officers had no pending recommendations for such awards, that sounded rather strange, but they picked some soldiers and lined them up as instructed. Westmoreland arrived on schedule, as did a second ship full of photographers. "They swarmed around him like gnats and took pictures of his every move," said Parker, who remembered that, despite having his arm in a sling (later revealed as due to a tennis injury), Westmoreland "had a regal manner." He handed out the medals, got back in his helicopter, and headed for the next stop. As his ship lifted off, the battalion operations officer went down the line of troops who had been decorated, taking back the medals, "an awards ceremony in reverse." Said Parker, "The visit turned out to be pure public relations for General Westmoreland. We were props."25

  A more serious case, a strenuous effort to discredit certain reporting after the fact, took place in early December 1967. Westmoreland was shown the draft of a Jonathan Schell article, scheduled for publication in the New Yorker, which was highly critical of a U.S. operation in two northern provinces, especially in terms of alleged callousness of the troops toward the civilian populace. Describing Schell as "an avowed pacifist," Westmoreland said the article was highly exaggerated and would create major problems if published. He urged Robert Komer to see Ambassador Bunker about the article, "which I felt could get involved in the war crimes arena if taken at face value." The point of seeing Bunker was to urge that he send a message to Washington which, said Westmoreland, "would hopefully bring about some pressures to withhold publication until the matter could be given further study."26 As it happened, there was some further study, with most interesting results. Said Bunker, "We sent an embassy officer to investigate. He reported that much of what Schell described was true."27