Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam

by Lewis Sorley

  DESPITE HIS LONG years of service in Vietnam, and his almost daily visits to various units and installations across the country, Westmoreland seemed to understand very little of what the war was like for the combat infantryman there. After Life magazine published an article with numerous photographs showing troops just in from the field as ragged and disheveled, he called in Lieutenant Colonel John Galvin, recently returned from having commanded the battalion depicted. Galvin was appalled by the interview. "Westmoreland had no understanding of what the troops were going through out in the jungle," he discovered. "I couldn't believe it." One picture was of a company commander named Utermahlen. He had just come out of the field and was unshaven and unkempt. "Westy didn't understand that," recalled Galvin. "He was fixed on appearance. 'Jack, explain this to me,' he said. But he just didn't get it!"

  IN 1969 TOWNSEND Hoopes, a former Under Secretary of the Air Force, published The Limits of Intervention in which he described Westmoreland as "a thoroughly decent, moderately intelligent product of the Army system, long on energy and organizational skill, short on political perception, and precluded from serious comparison with the leading generals of World War II and Korea by an unmistakable aura of Boy Scoutism." Turning to his performance in Vietnam, Hoopes said that Westmoreland "relished the challenge of searching out and destroying the NVN regular forces, but was essentially indifferent to the fighting capacities of the ARVN, asking only that it get out of his way; and he gave lowest priority to pacification, indeed seeming not to see the relationship between aggressive search and destroy operations in the populated countryside and the stream of refugees (some 900,000 by October 1967) who were forced from their land by the terror of artillery and air strikes, by burned out villages and ruined crops; and who, pressed into crowded, unsavory camps along the southern coast, were now sullenly anti-American."29 Westmoreland was furious, assigning staff officers to take the book apart in search of misstatements or errors that could be used to attack and discredit it. He himself resorted to an impassioned ad hominem attack, telling the Army's Chief of Military History that Hoopes's account was "the most fictitious thing I ever saw, based apparently on deep-seated antagonism, complete ignorance, and a lack of integrity."30

  Even as Westmoreland continued fiercely defending the war of attrition and search and destroy tactics he had devised, one of his chief associates in conceptualizing and implementing that approach admitted its futility. "I guess my biggest surprise," reflected General William DePuy, "and this was a surprise in which I have lots of company, was that the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong would continue the war despite the punishment they were taking. I guess I should have expected that. I guess I should have studied human nature and the history of Vietnam and of revolutions and should have known it, but I didn't. I really thought that the kind of pressure they were under would cause them to perhaps knock off the war for a while, at a minimum, or even give up and go back north. I understand that, from 1965 to 1969, they lost over 600,000 men. But I was completely wrong on that. That was a surprise."31

  "What we also didn't anticipate was the massive intervention of the North Vietnamese Army," he further revealed. "Our operational approach was to increase the pressure on the other side (size of force, intensity of operations, casualties) in the belief that it had a breaking point. But the regime in Hanoi did not break; it did not submit to our logic."32

  To his great credit, DePuy was very candid in discussing these matters. "We fell into that trap," he said, the trap of trading casualties with the enemy in an effort to wear them down. "We thought, and I guess Mr. McNamara thought, and the JCS thought we were beating the hell out of 'em, and they couldn't take it forever. It turned out they controlled the tempo of the war better than we would admit. We beat the devil out of 'em time after time, and they just pulled off and waited and regained their strength until they could afford some more losses. Then they came back again." "So we ended up with no operational plan that had the slightest chance of ending the war favorably."33

  Sir Robert Thompson, the British counterinsurgency expert, took part in a seminar in London not long after the conclusion of Westmoreland's tenure as COMUSMACV. He noted the near-total neglect of pacification during those years, along with the emphasis on search and destroy operations, and he too commented on how that had in turn created millions of refugees who, instead of being protected in their home villages, had been driven out of them. Thus, he concluded, "the strategy which was adopted, particularly in the past three years, destroyed the American justification for the war, the justification almost for their being in Vietnam." And: "If you want it in one word, it was given when General Westmoreland was asked at a press conference what was the answer to insurgency. He replied, 'Firepower.'" Thus, said Thompson, "When you come right down to it, it was not General Giap who beat President Johnson, it was General Westmoreland."34

  WHILE HE WAS Chief of Staff Westmoreland had, as did all senior officers, a stable of speechwriters. They understood their primary mission. "I was a speechwriter for General Westmoreland," recalled Major General Frank Schober. "He talked all over the country... trying to explain what he had done in Vietnam."

  By mid-November 1971, Westmoreland reported to the Army Policy Council, he had spoken in forty-three states. This strenuous schedule necessarily limited the time available for other aspects of his job, a reality he acknowledged. "I had too much to occupy me [to get into details of Army reorganization]," he said in an oral history interview, "and of course I was Chief of Staff during the height of the anti-war movement in this country. And I, frankly, in evaluating the priorities of my time, gave rather high priority to going around the country and giving them the facts of life with respect to the military... and offsetting some of the adverse propaganda that had been perpetrated. I went right into the lion's den on this."35

  During his final two years as Chief of Staff, Westmoreland had as his Executive Officer Colonel (later full general) Volney Warner, a thoughtful and decent man, thoroughly committed to Westmoreland and desirous of helping him. By then, many officers wanted Westmoreland removed from his position. "When I reported to General Westmoreland to begin service as his executive officer," recalled Warner, "he asked me whether I was a GROW charter member." GROW was an informal network of people who advocated "Get Rid of Westmoreland," as General William Knowlton noted in his oral history. "There grew up within the staff—some of the young civilians within the OSD area or within the Army—it became quite faddish to become a member of that group—devoted themselves wholeheartedly to getting rid of General Westmoreland as Chief of Staff of the Army."

  According to Ted Sell, writing in the Washington Post in March of 1968, a substantial number of relatively junior Army officers also privately criticized Westmoreland for concentrating on "a war of big units maneuvering all over the country," and as early as 1965 "officers who opposed his views wryly [and clandestinely] organized what they called the GROW program."36 Another version sometimes cited was WON, "Westmoreland Out Now."

  Warner sought to persuade Westmoreland to look ahead rather than back. "I feel that most people are no longer interested in the origins of the Vietnam War and the problems in pursuing it," he said in a note to Westmoreland. Likewise, in a speech outline provided to Westmoreland, Warner suggested that he "emphasize that the Vietnam era is drawing to a close, and that we must now look to the future." Westmoreland would not, or could not, take that good advice, continuing to dwell on Vietnam for the rest of his long life.

  "I would often bring to General Westmoreland's attention problems or bad news I thought he needed to know about," Warner recalled. "Often he wouldn't react in any way. I never knew whether this was because he didn't agree, or he just didn't understand."

  Warner recognized Westmoreland's shortcomings but also understood and admired him as a person. "I am absolutely convinced," he said, long after Westmoreland had retired, "that Westmoreland didn't understand the war, doesn't understand it now, but everything he did he did because he tho
ught it was the right thing to do." Their relationship was an unusual one, however. Warner believed that Westmoreland had chosen him for the executive officer's position because of his disagreement with Westmoreland's position on Vietnam, "and because he was willing to give me personally the opportunity to argue directly with him on my point of view." That went nowhere, however, Warner acknowledging that he was never successful in changing Westmoreland's mind. In the process, though, he came to have affection and compassion for Westmoreland matched by few others.

  WESTMORELAND'S TRAVEL ORDINARILY involved at least some time at military installations, on occasion with unanticipated results. On a trip to Germany he visited elements of a tank battalion in their local training area. Getting ready for the visit, the unit had set up smoke generators, arranged close air support, and even painted the helipad orange (under the snow). Westmoreland arrived and was greeted by various people. The battalion S-3 watched as his driver, a soldier named Chambers, shook hands with the Chief of Staff. Westmoreland asked him if that was the way things were always set up at the range. "Fuck, no!" exclaimed Chambers, who "proceeded to give Westmoreland an impassioned rundown on all the Mickey Mouse things they'd had to do in preparation for his visit, all the while still grasping and vigorously shaking his hand."37

  Impending visits by the Chief of Staff were not uniformly welcomed. At Fort Hood the 2nd Armored Division was told that Westmoreland would be inspecting their training on a given date. That created something of a dilemma. Recently the division had received a large number of infantrymen, rotating from service in Vietnam, and been told to retrain these men as tankers. The troops involved had only a few months left before leaving the Army, which was about the only thing that interested them. They were in the midst of a strenuous four-week program to make them into tankers and would be on the range firing tank guns when Westmoreland visited. The division's senior officers discussed the situation, realizing that the gunnery would probably not go well and that they would consequently make a poor impression on the Chief of Staff. It was decided that "the Chief of Staff needs to know the trauma we are undergoing resulting from a DA [Department of the Army] decision to convert short-term Vietnam infantrymen into qualified tankers in four weeks." Besides, they reasoned, "the Chief of Staff is an experienced commander with a reputation for fairness and will understand our situation."38

  On the appointed date Westmoreland arrived. The range was squared away, but when firing began, few rounds hit their targets. "Although the CG had carefully briefed him on the whole situation en route to the range," recalled an officer then serving as division chief of staff, "the Army Chief of Staff is incensed. He calls the firing to a halt, dismounts the [troops], the NCOs, the officers, and gathers everyone around him. He berates everyone for such a rotten example of gunnery, for the waste of ammo, for the poor NCO instruction, for inadequate officer supervision. Then he takes the CG aside, mercifully out of hearing of the troops, but in their full view, and proceeds to tear the division commander apart; he thereafter leaves the range without a single word of appreciation for anyone." In later discussion with the division staff, the division commander made excuses for Westmoreland. "He is exhausted from a killing schedule," he suggested. "He has been under severe attack by the press in recent weeks." That was Westmoreland's last visit to the division during that commander's tenure. And, to the sorrow of the commander's senior associates, who greatly admired him, Major General Wendell Coats, "until then considered to be a rising star, eventually moved on to another major general's position, well out of the mainstream of the Army, from which he retired."39

  ***

  AT ONE POINT Major John Sewall was the "traveling aide," which meant he made most of the trip arrangements and generally accompanied Westmoreland wherever he went. As was the case with so many others who were close to Westmoreland, Sewall's impression during his year of duty was that Westmoreland's principal preoccupation was with rationalizing and justifying his performance in Vietnam. One day the two men were being driven back from an appointment in Washington, riding together in the back seat of the sedan. Westmoreland was pretty much all business all the time, observed Sewall, so there was very little chitchat when they were traveling together. On this occasion Westmoreland had been gazing out the window for a long time when he suddenly turned to Sewall and said, "out of the blue" as the young officer remembered it, "You know, if we'd used nuclear weapons we could have won that war."40

  WESTMORELAND HAD LONG WISHED to achieve an Army aviator's rating and wings. Now he took advantage of his position as Chief of Staff to further that quest. He began by setting up "informal" flying lessons at Davison Army Airfield, at nearby Fort Belvoir. His calendar for those years shows numerous entries for "helicopter flying at 0800," especially on Saturdays, and once even at 2130 (9:30 P.M.) after returning from a two-day conference out of town. This routine continued through much of 1970 and then, on Monday, 21 September 1970, he was at Fort Rucker, Alabama, home of the Army Aviation School, for "flight instruction 0730–1500." That same date, according to an Army special order, he was certified as having completed flight training and was designated an Army Aviator, awarded the Army Aviator Badge, and placed on flying status. A week later Westmoreland signed a document waiving flight pay.

  Westmoreland proudly wore his wings, of course, even though—as photographs from that period show—fitting them in among his numerous ribbons and other badges pushed his Combat Infantryman's Badge nearly out of sight beneath the epaulet of his blouse.

  IN APRIL 1970, prompted by a recommendation from General Peers based on the findings of his My Lai inquiry, Westmoreland directed the Army War College to conduct a review of "certain areas and practices" within the Army which, he said, "were a matter of grave concern to me." Stunned by Peers's report, Westmoreland tasked the War College to examine "the moral and professional climate within the ranks—the state of discipline and ethics."

  The result was published later that year as the Army War College Study on Military Professionalism. Its conclusions could not have been more troubling. "The findings of this study surprised and, in some cases, shocked many of the Army's senior leaders," said a staff summary. "In general, it discovered that the majority of the Officer Corps perceived a stark dichotomy between the appearance and reality of the adherence of senior officers to the traditional standards of professionalism, which the words duty, honor, and country sum up. Instead, these officers saw a system that rewarded selfishness, incompetence and dishonesty."41 That devastating finding came from the officer corps itself, not any outside critics or academicians or any other group with hostile motives or lack of inside knowledge.

  An oft-quoted passage from the study noted "a scenario that was repeatedly described in seminar sessions and narrative response... an ambitious, transitory commander—marginally skilled in the complexities of his duties—engulfed in producing statistical results, fearful of personal failure, too busy to talk with or listen to his subordinates, and determined to submit acceptably optimistic reports which reflect faultless completion of a variety of tasks at the expense of the sweat and frustration of his subordinates."

  Colonel Walter Ulmer (later a lieutenant general) and Colonel "Mike" Malone, who wrote the study, went down from Carlisle Barracks to the Pentagon to brief the results to Westmoreland. "Our recommendation was that a copy go to every general officer in the Army," recalled Ulmer. "General Westmoreland decided instead to have it marked 'Close Hold,' which meant that for a number of years very few people were aware of the study's findings."42

  Ulmer and Malone were present when Westmoreland and his key people discussed how to handle the report. "Westmoreland said that we should use it, but we should keep it close hold because the Army had just been beaten over the head and this was just another reason to be beaten over the head," said Ulmer. "It was then put close hold. There was very limited distribution. We put a couple hundred copies in some bathroom up at the War College and locked the door."43

  Scarcely two yea
rs later, approaching retirement, Westmoreland would claim that these deep-seated systemic problems had been resolved. "Your Army today is a dynamic organization, proud of its traditions and accomplishments, optimistic about the future, and confident of the direction in which it is moving," he wrote in a January 1972 New York Times op-ed essay. And, in a 30 June 1972 valedictory letter to President Nixon, he wrote that in his opinion "the officer corps has never been stronger than it is now—certainly not in my 36 years of commissioned service."

  In his final summation, Report of the Chief of Staff, Westmoreland provided a more realistic assessment, noting that "throughout the four years [of his tenure as Chief of Staff], we also had to deal with a series of social or behavioral problems—absenteeism, dissent, racism, drug abuse, and crime. Some were peculiar to military service, others were akin to problems existing in civil society."