by Lewis Sorley
Faced with this panoply of challenging tasks, Westmoreland nevertheless concentrated on fostering his own legacy. "He spent a lot of time on that," said an officer who served as his executive officer during a portion of his four years in that post. "He was very interested in the proper telling of the story of the Vietnam War."4 Major Paul Miles agreed sympathetically. "Vietnam was always at the top of the agenda," he said. "Europe and other major concerns were almost a distraction. He was carrying a heavy burden."5
Westmoreland himself told interviewers how he saw his responsibilities. "As you know," he said, "I spoke in every state in the union. 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." And, most significantly: "I felt that an understanding of the military was the primary mission that fell on my shoulders while I was Chief of Staff."6
Lieutenant General Robert Pursley served for several years as Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, and he too remembered Westmoreland's extensive speaking schedule. "It was a joke around 3E880 [the Secretary of Defense's Pentagon office] when Westy was in town," said Pursley. "He was always out speechifying."
Wherever he went, no matter the audience, Westmoreland spoke of Vietnam and, more specifically, his tenure in Vietnam. Addressing officers serving in Washington assignments outside the Department of the Army, for example, he told them that in Vietnam "our basic national strategy, which has never been publicly announced for obvious reasons, was to hurt the enemy until he negotiated, and in the process not to widen the war. This has been our basic national strategy." Within the established parameters, he said, "my basic strategy within South Vietnam, my battlefield strategy, was to grind down the enemy" and "concurrently build up the Vietnamese quantitatively and qualitatively and modernize their forces to the point where at some future date we would be able to turn more and more over to them and eventually redeploy some of our forces or phase down the level of commitment."
Not only was that the strategy, Westmoreland told this group of officers, but also "we must make this fact known, that the Army was a winner. We have hurt the enemy to the point that they have now moved to the negotiating table. Our military forces have served their purpose in supporting national policy." Speaking as though the war were over, Westmoreland developed this theme at length, then asked for questions. There were none.7
In early autumn, after the Westmorelands had moved from temporary housing into Quarters 1 at Fort Myer, they invited President and Mrs. Johnson to dinner. The President was delayed, so Lady Bird went ahead with her daughter Luci. "At first there were only the four of us," she remembered, "but then General and Mrs. Earle Wheeler joined us. Both Generals were in civilian clothes, looking curiously different and defenseless without those uniforms." The President arrived quite late, maybe nine o'clock, and looking, said Lady Bird, "as tired as I have ever seen him, as worn—the fight temporarily gone out of him." But it was a warm occasion, even sentimental, she said in her diary. "One of the things that Lyndon said in describing the mood of the country concerned the great disservice that has, somehow, been done to the military. Their influence, prestige, place in society, are under attack. The glitter is off the stars."8
WESTMORELAND'S VICE CHIEF of Staff was his classmate General Bruce Palmer Jr. Palmer had served under Westmoreland in Vietnam, first as Commanding General, II Field Force, Vietnam, a tactical command, and then, after only a few months in that job, as Deputy Commanding General, U.S. Army, Vietnam, a largely administrative post. Palmer bitterly resented his reassignment, which he attributed to Westmoreland's desire to put someone else into the tactical billet. Now he was going to be backstopping Westmoreland again, and for the entire four-year tour.
A widespread perception in the Army of that day was that, while Westmoreland was out trying to salvage his reputation in the wake of Vietnam, Palmer was running the Army. "Westy went back," recalled Lieutenant General John Cushman, "and of course that's when Bruce Palmer began to run the Army." Another officer recalled that "General DePuy would tell us: 'Send Westmoreland out of town for a week so we can get some work done with General Palmer.'" Colonel S. V. Edgar, who was involved in a major reorganization project during the Westmoreland years, said that "it was widely, I think, admitted that General Palmer was really running the Army and made most of the decisions."9 That was confirmed, especially in terms of the planned reorganization, by Secretary of the Army Robert Froehlke, who said, "the person really behind that was Bruce Palmer. Bruce ran the Army, and did it very well."10
Later, when Palmer was about to retire, then–Major General Donn Starry wrote to him, "I shall always remember those sort of grim years there in the Pentagon when you held the Army together virtually singlehanded."
Palmer himself addressed this issue sympathetically in an interview with Army historian Dr. James Hewes. "Particularly in the early days," he recalled, "the Chief, General Westmoreland, was away, out of town a lot. He had come back from Vietnam in the summer of 1968. We had a new President in 1969, and to President Nixon Westmoreland was a political liability." Thus, "Westmoreland's feelings were pretty badly hurt, particularly in those early days. So he decided he would travel as much as he could."
"We never saw him," Palmer said of Westmoreland during these years. "He made a great point of it—he visited all fifty states." Palmer perceived a political motive at work: "He thought he was going to be another Eisenhower, swept into office. He really thought he was going to become President. He talked to me about it." Palmer knew that was unlikely. "I told him, 'Westy, it's completely different. It [Vietnam] was not a popular war.'"11
The extent to which Palmer functioned essentially as the Chief of Staff was later reflected in a gesture spearheaded by the Army Chief of Military History, who arranged for a "Chief of Staff" portrait of Palmer to be painted and hung in the Pentagon corridor where former Chiefs of Staff are commemorated. Done by Herbert Abrams, the same artist who painted portraits of Westmoreland and Abrams, Palmer's portrait hangs between those of his two classmates. The rationale was that Palmer had been Acting Chief of Staff for an extended period, which indeed he had for about three and a half months between Westmoreland's retirement and the confirmation of Abrams, but of course that had not entailed any Presidential nomination, Congressional committee hearings, or Senate confirmation. Clearly the intention of the Army was to honor Palmer for his extraordinary service as Vice Chief of Staff during the years he largely stood in for Westmoreland.
IN THE AUTUMN OF 1968 Westmoreland made his first visit as Chief of Staff to the Army War College. The Commandant, Lieutenant General William McCaffrey, had asked him up to give the usual Chief of Staff's "State of the Army" overview to the class. "I thought the Chief of Staff ought to come talk to his War College students," said McCaffrey, "because that's the future of the Army and they ought to see him and he ought to see them and so on." Things didn't work out as McCaffrey had hoped. "I invited Westy up to talk as the Chief of Staff. But Westy didn't talk as the Chief of Staff," said a disappointed Commandant. "He talked all about Vietnam. He couldn't wrench his mind away from it, and it was an apology for all that had happened."12
The following year Westmoreland was the first speaker for the next War College class. Colonel William Greynolds remembered the occasion vividly. The talk began at 11:00 A.M. and continued, despite being scheduled to end at noon, until about 1:15 P.M. "When lunchtime came," said Greynolds, "students from the other services began to drift away, but the Army guys in uniform had to gut it out. Westmoreland went through a seemingly endless series of cards, each dealing with some problem he had identified and the actions he said he had taken to deal with it. He seemed sort of desperate, and the whole thing was rather pathetic."13
Former Secretary of the Army Stephen Ailes had anticipated this problem. "The trick in the business of transition is to look ahead, not back, and to become involved in the projects that lie ahead," he said in a letter to General Harold K. Johnson.
"In this connection I am hopeful that Westy will concentrate his energies, and certainly his speeches, on his myriad responsibilities as Chief of Staff and on what lies ahead for the Army rather than on any defense or justification of his role in Vietnam—a role that I agree is easily defended."14
That was, unfortunately, not to be. "All he wanted to do was write his book," said General Ferdinand Chesarek, then the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff. Chesarek saw there was also going to be another problem for the new Chief of Staff. Secretary of the Army Resor, he said, "was a detail man. Mr. Resor wants to know all of the ramifications.... General Westmoreland doesn't function like this. He's not a detail man."15
Another place where doing the homework mattered was in the Joint Chiefs of Staff conference room, known as the Tank. Deliberations there were serious business, with virtually every substantive issue overlaid with budget implications and often contentious matters relating to service "roles and missions" as well. Westmoreland, traveling extensively and not that interested in detail, did not show to advantage in that venue. "I was in the Tank a lot," recalled Colonel John VanDerBruegge, then a J-1 staff officer. "I was always embarrassed at the presentations that Westmoreland would make on Army matters. He was inept, and he wouldn't put his glasses on. One time he started briefing from the wrong paper." Lieutenant General Robert Beckel, an Air Force officer working for JCS Chairman Admiral Moorer, recalled being in one meeting with Westmoreland and was not impressed. "He seemed rather stupid," said Beckel. "He didn't seem to grasp things or follow the proceedings very well." General Ralph Haines, the holdover Vice Chief of Staff until Bruce Palmer took that position, formed an even broader view. "Westy certainly never understood the operation of the JCS," he said.
The young majors and lieutenant colonels—"action officers" as they were called—soon encountered their own problems in dealing with Westmoreland. Memoranda for the Chief of Staff were now limited to one page (although attachments were permitted), and most business was conducted on the basis of oral briefings. Remembered Lieutenant General Charles Simmons of that time: "General Westmoreland was intellectually very shallow and made no effort to study, read or learn. He would just not read anything. His performance was appalling."
Some briefers were dismayed to find that Westmoreland would occupy himself during one-on-one deskside briefings by signing photographs of himself, one after another, while they made their presentations. Sometimes he would fall asleep while being briefed, leaving the panicked staff officer trying to decide whether to continue as though nothing had happened or wait until the general awoke before resuming.
***
"WESTMORELAND CAME HOME," said his close associate Colonel "Hap" Argo, then still in Vietnam as the MACV Historian. "He thought he was regarded as a great hero. Then he got a look at the Washington Post. He called me in Vietnam, where it was midnight, and ran on for three hours. Saving his career [reputation] became a major thing with him. He called me every day for a week, and we talked two hours a day. He could not believe what had happened to him. He had stayed at the White House."16
Westmoreland brought into the Army Staff a number of senior officers with whom he had served before, including perhaps most importantly General William DePuy. DePuy was serving on the Joint Staff, but before long Westmoreland was able to have him reassigned to fill an important billet as Assistant Vice Chief of Staff. In that role he often coached Westmoreland for important meetings and negotiations, and in a very basic way. Major General Clay Buckingham, then a more junior officer, was a division chief in the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Force Development. He remembered an occasion when DePuy and his staff were briefing Westmoreland on proposed major changes to the Army force structure. "Westmoreland did not seem to be paying attention," he said. "At one point General DePuy, who was sitting next to the Chief, interrupted the briefing and, turning toward Westmoreland, spoke directly to his face from about eight inches away. General DePuy's brief and forceful remarks, spoken in a calm voice but one which could easily be heard by all attendees, went something like this: 'Chief, you must pay attention and listen to this. It concerns the future of the Army. It is very important for the Army and you must make a decision about our proposal at the end of this briefing.' For a few minutes Westmoreland seemed to pay attention, but before long his eyes wandered and his gaze seemed to be on something far, far away. At the end of the briefing he simply told General DePuy to go ahead with his plans, got up, and walked out. His mind was obviously somewhere else."17
ONE OF THE MOST traumatic, and shameful, episodes of the Vietnam War was what came to be known as the My Lai massacre, a bloody day in which elements of the 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division mercilessly gunned down as many as several hundred unarmed South Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children, including babes in arms. This had happened (16 March 1968) on Westmoreland's watch as commander, but because leaders in that division covered it up it did not become public knowledge until about a year later. By then, of course, Westmoreland was back in the United States as Chief of Staff.
Lieutenant General William R. Peers was appointed to head an investigation into what happened at My Lai and any subsequent cover-up of the incident. Peers and his team did an admirable job, but encountered many frustrations. Concluded Peers, "[T]he failures of leadership that characterized nearly every aspect of the My Lai incident had their counterpart at the highest level during the attempt to prosecute those responsible."18
The Commanding General of the Americal Division at the time of the massacre was Major General Samuel Koster. When those war crimes came to light Koster was, of all unfortunate places, at the Military Academy at West Point as Superintendent. A dozen or so officers had been charged with covering up the war crimes at My Lai, with Koster as the former division commander the most senior of them. He was replaced at West Point and subsequently reduced in rank, stripped of a high decoration he had been awarded by Westmoreland for his service in Vietnam, and officially reprimanded.19
All those actions were taken administratively, with no court-martial charges preferred. General Peers was appalled. "I was especially disturbed by General Seaman's dismissal of charges against the senior officers, particularly in General Koster's case," he wrote. "When General Westmoreland informed me of the proposed action against General Koster (the letter of censure), I told him, in effect, that it was a travesty of justice and would establish a precedent that would be difficult for the Army to live down."20
Historian Stephen Ambrose wrote that what happened at My Lai "was a failure of leadership on Westy's part, and on down—corps, division, battalion, down to platoon level."21 Guenter Lewy, a distinguished academician, concluded that "until the My Lai incident, the rules of engagement were not as widely known as they should have been, and the American command can justly be faulted with failing to take all possible measures to enforce the rules."22 Those were the considered views of favorably disposed and responsible critics.
General Peers wrote in an 18 March 1970 memorandum to Westmoreland: "Directives and regulations, no matter how well prepared and intended, are only pieces of paper unless they are enforced aggressively and firmly throughout the chain of command."23 He told Westmoreland directly that "I need the directives, but I need the psychology down the chain of command, too. That is more important to me than a written piece of paper." The Peers Report subsequently included the devastating finding that "prior to My Lai 'there had developed... a permissive attitude towards the treatment and safeguarding of non-combatants which was exemplified by an almost total disregard for the lives and property of the civilian population... on the part of commanders and key staff officers.'"24
At one point Westmoreland himself faced war crimes charges, brought against him at the instigation of an Army sergeant who maintained that he had been guilty of dereliction of duty in failing to prevent the massacre at My Lai. The complainant specifically rested his charges on the precedent of a World War II case in which Japanese General Yamashita was convicted of w
ar crimes by an American tribunal and executed.
Subsequently the Army's General Counsel, Robert Jordan, concluded that Westmoreland "did as much as any person could be expected to do to prevent the kind of atrocities which are alleged to have occurred" and that "there is clear evidence here that General Westmoreland knew absolutely nothing about the Son My [My Lai] incident at the time in question." Jordan so advised Secretary of the Army Stanley Resor.25
Resor took the matter under advisement, then recorded in a memorandum for record dated 14 October 1970 that "as a court-martial convening authority under Article 22, Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. 822, I have personally made a preliminary inquiry into the charge against General William C. Westmoreland preferred on September 9, 1970 by Sergeant Esequiel Torres." Then: "I have concluded that General Westmoreland took appropriate measures available to him to prevent the commission of atrocities, that criminal justice proceedings were initiated by appropriate authorities subordinate to General Westmoreland where the evidence supported such atrocity charges, that at the relevant times General Westmoreland had no knowledge of the alleged Son My incident, and that the Yamashita case provided no precedent to support the charge. I have consequently concluded that the charge filed by Sergeant Torres is unsupported by the evidence and that it should be and hereby is dismissed."26
"As regards the question of ultimate responsibility," wrote William F. Buckley Jr. at the time, "the public is entitled to be confused. We hanged General Yamashita after the Second World War, and if we applied rigorously the logic of that execution, we would have a case for hanging Gen. Westmoreland. That would be preposterous and cruel."27
While all this was going on, an extremely interesting letter was provided to Westmoreland by a friend. It had been written by Major General Russel B. Reynolds, identified as president of the Yamashita court-martial (actually a military tribunal), to Colonel John H. Tucker Jr. in late 1970 and forwarded by Tucker to Westmoreland the following April. Reynolds described how the members of the tribunal had decided, at their final meeting, that they would never speak or write publicly about General Yamashita's trial. Their rationale was that the very voluminous record, over four thousand pages, including testimony from 286 witnesses, would stand on its own. But then, said Reynolds, various commentators began to charge that "the prosecution had failed to produce any evidence that Yamashita ordered the atrocities, or even knew about them." He knew that was not true and quoted from a letter addressing the point that he had written to a friend in 1946: "There was such testimony—direct, responsible, eye-witness, convincing, damning."28 There were no parallels whatsoever between the Yamashita case and the conduct of Westmoreland in Vietnam.