by Lewis Sorley
24 Bergerud, Red Thunder, p. 64.
25 Halberstam as quoted in Dorland, Legacy of Discord, p. 63.
26 Moore and Galloway, We Were Soldiers Once, p. 319.
27 Class of 1936 Notes, Assembly (Winter 1965), p. 71.
28 Maj. Gen. Ellis Williamson interview, 1 July 1999.
29 Ibid.
30 Brig. Gen. Douglas Kinnard, "Westmoreland's and McNamara's War," p. 42.
31 Sidle interview, 6 June 1999.
32 History File 11, 19 November 1966, WPCMH.
33 McNamara testimony, Westmoreland vs. CBS libel trial, in Vietnam: A Documentary Collection, p. 4911.
34 Newsday (11 November 1966).
35 Westmoreland, Press Conference, Honolulu, 5 February 1966, Box 1, WPCMH.
36 As quoted in Maurer, Strange Ground, p. 453.
37 As quoted in Mark Perry, "The Resurrection of John Paul Vann," Veteran (July 1988), p. 31.
38 Gen. Bruce Palmer Jr. Oral History Interview: General Creighton Abrams Story, 29 May 1975, MHI.
39 Millett, "Why the Army and the Marine Corps Should Be Friends," Parameters (Winter 1994–1995), p. 33.
40 Message, Krulak to CG III MAF, 270218Z October 1965, marked "Marine Corps Eyes Only," General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Papers, Marine Corps Historical Center.
41 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 165.
42 Quoted in Shulimson and Wells, "First In, First Out," Marine Corps Gazette (January 1984), p. 39.
43 Johnson Oral History Interview, MHI.
44 Message, Johnson to Westmoreland, WDC 13029, 021205Z October 1967, MHI.
45 Message, Westmoreland to Senior Advisor, IV Corps, and DCG, USARV, MAC 34269, 180905Z October 1967, Box 14, WPCMH.
46 Debriefing Report, Maj. Gen. Charles P. Stone, CG 4th Infantry Division (4 January 1968–30 November 1968), CMH.
47 Kinnard, The War Managers, p. 45. Westmoreland was one of those receiving the survey instrument. "I am happy to fill out your questionnaire," he wrote to Kinnard. "It is returned herewith." Later, when he learned of some of the results, Westmoreland changed his position to being harshly critical of the research effort. After making strenuous (but unavailing) efforts to pry out of Kinnard the names of some of the respondents who had denounced his approach, Westmoreland told Kinnard he should have showed the manuscript to him before publishing it. Kinnard, by then an academician, explained to Westmoreland that as a professor he didn't even clear what he published with his department chairman.
48 Gen. Arthur E. Brown Jr. interview, 3 September 1994.
49 Lt. Gen. Ngo Quang Truong, Territorial Forces, p. 134.
50 JCS History, II:38–41.
51 Davidson, LBJ Library Oral History, as quoted in Moyar, Phoenix and the Birds of Prey, p. 49.
52 Westmoreland Oral History (Ganderson), MHI.
53 Ibid.
54 Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 407.
55 As quoted in Stewart Harris, "U.S. Forces Prepared," London Times, c. 1 April 1965, Box 66, WPSCL. The article is datelined 31 March 1965.
56 Dennis Chamberland, "Interview: Westmoreland," Naval Institute Proceedings (July 1986), p. 48.
57 OJCS, Intensification, p. C-12.
58 For an extended description of the PROVN Study, see Sorley, Honorable Warrior, pp. 227–241.
59 As quoted in Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, p. 127, and in many other sources.
60 Dr. Herbert Y. Schandler interviews, 23 and 26 February 1996.
61 Address, Colby Military Writers' Symposium, Norwich University, Northfield, Vt., 5 April 2001.
62 William E. Colby Interview, 16 July 1981, WGBH Interview Collection, Healey Library, University of Massachusetts at Boston.
63 Chester Cooper wrote perceptively of the Tuesday Lunch that it "had much the character of a cabal: no agenda, no minutes, no regular subsequent communication or follow-up with staff officers and subordinate officials," all at least in part the result of LBJ's "almost pathological fear of leaks." The Lost Crusade, p. 414. Gen. Wheeler was not included regularly until after the August 1967 Stennis subcommittee hearings made an issue of his exclusion. Then, according to his associate Lt. Gen. Harry Lemley, Wheeler "used to complain that they always had liver, and it was tough liver." Lemley Oral History, MHI.
64 Enthoven and Smith, How Much Is Enough?, p. 294.
65 Ibid., p. 295. Lt. Gen. Dave Palmer, Westmoreland's former aide, likewise raised the question of "why [Westmoreland's] search-and-destroy tactics seemed in the end to have required so much to do so little." Summons of the Trumpet, p. 135.
66 Paper, "Lessons in Strategy," identified as "Based on discussion by Historian with General Westmoreland, May 1968," in Westmoreland History File #32, WPCMH.
12 ATMOSPHERICS
1 Time (7 January 1966), p. 13.
2 "Man of the Year," Time (7 January 1966), pp. 15–21. Hopper was a gossip columnist known for her collection of large and flamboyant hats.
3 Ibid., p. 20.
4 Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet, p. 103.
5 Daniel Cragg interview, 10 May 1993.
6 Interview with Charles B. MacDonald, 18 June 1973, Box 31, WPLBJ.
7 Quoted in Marc Phillip Yablonka, "Personality," Vietnam (August 2000), p. 18.
8 Westmoreland History File 13, WPCMH.
9 Letter to the Editor, Vietnam (October 2004), p. 56.
10 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 277.
11 Ibid.
12 Arnett, Live from the Battlefield, p. 212. Arnett's account may not be accurate. To another reporter, Keyes Beech, Westmoreland explained that he had resigned from the club because his headquarters had moved to Tan Son Nhut Air Base and it was no longer convenient to play downtown. And, near the end of his tour in Vietnam, Westmoreland stated the same rationale to his former deputy, Lt. Gen. John Heintges. "Yes, I did resign from the Circle Sportif," he wrote. "It had nothing to do with criticism and, in fact, was initiated before any criticism arose. I simply found that there were better and more convenient facilities available here on Tan Son Nhut." He clearly had not, in any case, given up the game.
13 Westmoreland Oral History (Ganderson), MHI.
14 Westmoreland testimony, p. 3580, Westmoreland vs. CBS Microfiche File, USAWC Library.
15 Col. Robert M. Cook Oral History, MHI.
16 In his memoirs Westmoreland still maintained that "from the first I emphasized a large and active inspector-general system." A Soldier Reports, p. 284.
17 Remarks, Lt. Gen. Herron N. Maples, USAWC, 2 May 1974.
18 Cook Oral History draft, MHI.
19 Ibid.
20 Cook interview, 24 March 1988.
21 Letter, Westmoreland to Dickinson, 9 July 1969, Box 8, WPSCL.
22 Message to John H. Hesterly, 15 September 2005, copy forwarded to Sorley by Hesterly.
23 Lt. Gen. Walter F. Ulmer Jr. telephone interview, 12 August 1997.
24 E-mail, Buckingham to Sorley, 1 June 2010.
25 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, pp. 59–60. Westmoreland's aide at the time, Dave Palmer, found this incident highly amusing and submitted it to Reader's Digest, using the pseudonym Owen Clemmer, and it was duly published.
26 Remarks, U.S. Air Force Academy History Symposium, 15 October 1992.
27 Col. Carl C. Ulsaker telephone interview, 12 July 1999.
28 David Maraniss, They Marched into Sunlight, p. 468.
13 BODY COUNT
1 As quoted in Braestrup, Big Story, II:163.
2 Message, Westmoreland to Wheeler, MAC 4114, 121245Z August 1965, History Backup File #17, WPCMH. In his memoirs Westmoreland states regarding body count that he "directed several detailed studies which determined as well as anybody could that the count probably erred on the side of caution." A Soldier Reports, p. 273. John Mueller later recalled, in a powerful article about the search for a breaking point in Vietnam, a MACV study that had analyzed some seventy captured enemy documents and then concluded that the reported body count for 1966 had been accurate to withi
n 1.8 percent. Then, he noted, OSD Systems Analysis reviewed the same documents and concluded that MACV's "enemy body count was overstated by at least 30 percent." "Search for a Breaking Point," p. 504.
3 Kinnard, The War Managers, p. 75. After Kinnard's book was published Westmoreland tried to get him to reveal the names of officers who made comments such as these. Lyndon Johnson was of course also deeply interested in body count. In a sad postscript to the war related by Doris Kearns, when the LBJ Library opened in Austin, Johnson wanted more people to visit it than any other presidential library, and he asked the staff to give him daily attendance figures. And then, wrote Kearns, "knowing that Johnson would be angry at them if the figures were low, the staff—in a painful similarity to another staff in another place—tended, gradually at first and then more and more regularly, to escalate the body count." Kearns, Lyndon Johnson, pp. 364–365.
4 Westmoreland Interview, Face the Nation, CBS Television Network (19 December 1971), CMH.
5 McNamara Deposition, p. 112, Vietnam: A Documentary Collection, USAWC Library.
6 Bunker Oral History, LBJ Library, II:22.
7 As quoted in Charlton and Moncrieff, Many Reasons Why, p. 144.
8 The other objectives were: "1. Increase the population in secure areas to 60% from 50%. 2. Increase the critical roads and RR open for use to 50 from 20%. 3. Increase the destruction of VC/PAVN base areas to 40–50% from 10–20%. 4. Ensure the defense of all military bases, political and population centers and food-producing areas now under govt. control. 5. Provide the military security needed for pacification of the four selected high-priority areas—increasing the pacified population in those areas by 235,000." Pentagon Papers, IV:625.
9 Holbrooke interview, 7 July 1983, WGBH Interview Collection, Healey Library, University of Massachusetts at Boston.
10 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 207.
11 Ibid., p. 159.
12 Pentagon Papers, II:548.
13 Ibid., II:554.
14 Gibbons, IV:358.
15 Memorandum, Westmoreland to Commander, 2nd Air Division. No date on copy viewed, but the document is in the 1966 folder, Box 4, DePuy Papers, MHI.
16 Letter, Westmoreland to Maj. Gen. Lewis Walt, 14 August 1965, History Backup File #17, WPCMH.
17 DePuy Oral History, MHI.
18 Zorthian interview, 15 June 2007.
19 Wilson, Washington Post (5 September 1974).
20 General Walter T. Kerwin Jr., Oral History Interview, MHI.
21 Don Moser, "Starched, Courtly Man Gambles to Win the War," Life (11 November 1966).
22 As quoted in ibid.
23 Westmoreland interview (Felter/Gritz), c. 1974, Box 52, WPSCL.
24 Lecture, "The Press in Vietnam," University of New Brunswick, Canada, 8 December 1972, Box 45, WPSCL.
25 Parker, Last Man Out, pp. 167–168.
26 Westmoreland History File #22, 5 December 1967, WPCMH.
27 Bunker, "Lost Victory," p. 87. Westmoreland wrote in his memoirs that "by depicting evacuation of the fortified village of Ben Suc in the Iron Triangle early in 1967 as an act of inhumanity rather than the essential and—under the circumstances—beneficent act that it was," Schell "added to the misunderstanding." A Soldier Reports, p. 153.
28 Letter, Westmoreland to Gen. James H. Polk, 3 February 1967, Box 5, WPSCL.
29 As quoted in Dorland, Legacy of Discord, p. 4.
30 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, pp. 250, 251.
31 Letter, Jordan to Westmoreland, 16 June 1980, Box 41, WPSCL.
32 PBS Telecast, "Ethics in America: Under Orders, Under Arms," 31 October 1987.
14 M-16 RIFLES
1 Westmoreland's marginal note in the copy of Douglas Kinnard's book The War Managers sent to him by Kinnard, then extensively marked up by Westmoreland and returned to Kinnard, p. 23.
2 Nguyen Cao Ky, Buddha's Child, p. 336.
3 Truong, RVNAF and US Operational Cooperation and Coordination, p. 166.
4 Lung, Strategy and Tactics, p. 73.
5 Khuyen, RVNAF Logistics, p. 57.
6 Westmoreland dictated notes, Box 41, WPSCL.
7 Westmoreland, "General John Throckmorton," material dictated for memoirs preparation, Box 41, WPSCL. Wrote former Army Chief of Military History Brigadier General James Lawton Collins Jr.: "After 1965 the increasing U.S. buildup slowly pushed Vietnamese armed forces materiel needs into the background. In December 1966 the Secretary of Defense directed that the issue of M16's to South Vietnam Army and Republic of Korea (ROK) forces be deferred and that the allocations previously planned for these forces be redirected to U.S. units." Development and Training of the South Vietnamese Army, p. 101.
8 Time (19 April 1968).
9 Gen. Harold Keith Johnson CMH interview, 20 November 1970.
10 Ibid.
11 Gen. Frank'S. Besson Jr. Oral History, MHI.
12 Collins, Development and Training of the South Vietnamese Army, p. 101.
13 Weyand, Debriefing Report, Headquarters, II Field Force, Vietnam, 4 October 1968, Box 15, WPCMH.
14 Message, Wheeler to Sharp and Westmoreland, JCS 6767-66, 4 November 1966, Box 4, WPCMH.
15 Record of Chief of Staff Fonecon with Walt Rostow, 20 July 1971, History File #40, WPCMH.
16 Westmoreland Paper, "M-16 Rifle," Box 41, WPSCL.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Letter, Westmoreland to Tom Johnson (Executive Assistant to LBJ), 10 April 1970, History File #37, WPCMH.
20 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, pp. 202–203. In describing Clarke as "a retired World War II general," Westmoreland was apparently trying to portray him as old and irrelevant, since he had to know that, whereas Clarke did in World War II earn a battlefield promotion to brigadier, along with the Distinguished Service Cross and three Silver Stars, as a brilliant commander of tank forces in Europe, he served for many years thereafter, rising to the rank of four-star general and command of a corps in the Korean War (when Westmoreland was there as a brigadier), command of Continental Army Command (when Westmoreland was commanding a subordinate division and had briefed General Clarke on Operation Overdrive), and command of U.S. Army, Europe.
21 Letter, Gen. Bruce C. Clarke to Brig. Gen. Hal C. Pattison, 29 December 1969, Clarke Papers, MHI.
22 Letter, Clarke to Westmoreland, 19 February 1976, Box 15, WPSCL. Mayborn was editor and publisher of the Temple (Tex.) Daily Telegram.
23 "General Bruce C. Clarke's Report on Visit to Vietnam (Draft)," Box 6, WPSCL. Clarke was in Vietnam 7–13 February 1968.
24 Letter, Clarke to Westmoreland, 15 March 1968, Box 6, WPSCL.
25 Fonecon, Westmoreland with Bunker, 2005 hours, 16 February 1968, Box 37, WPCMH.
26 Letter, Adm. John'S. McCain Jr. to Clarke, 22 February 1969, Box 7, WPSCL.
27 Written responses to questions posed by Townsend Hoopes, 28 June 1969, Box 52, WPSCL.
28 Schandler in McNamara et al., Argument Without End, p. 351.
29 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 243.
30 Military History Institute of Vietnam, Official History, p. 193.
31 Telecon, Gen. John R. Galvin, 2 January 2005.
32 Weyand, Debriefing Report, Headquarters, II Field Force, Vietnam, 15 July 1968.
33 Schwarzkopf, It Doesn't Take a Hero, p. 126.
34 Kinnard, The War Managers, p. 176. More than one response could be marked, and an equal number—91 percent—also chose "defining the objectives."
35 As quoted in Andrew F. Krepinevich, "Vietnam: Evaluating the Ground War, 1965–1968," in Showalter and Albert, eds., An American Dilemma, p. 99. Krepinevich cited a 17 June 1982 interview with Taylor.
36 Message, Abrams to Johnson, MAC 5307, 040950Z June 1967, CMH.
37 Westmoreland Marine Corps Oral History, 4 April 1983.
38 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 328.
39 Charlton and Moncrieff, Many Reasons Why, p. 145.
40 Army Chief of Staff's Weekly Summary (21 May 1968).
&nb
sp; 41 Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 309. Emphasis supplied.
42 Stilwell interview, 26 January 1989.
43 Kinnard, The War Managers, p. 144.
44 Vien and Khuyen, Reflections, p. 80.
45 Clarke, Advice and Support, p. 278.
46 JCS History 1969–1970, p. 177.
15 PROGRESS OFFENSIVE
1 Message, Wheeler to Westmoreland, CJCS 1810-67, 092252Z March 1967, Joint Exhibit 231, Westmoreland vs. CBS Microfiche File, USAWC Library.
2 Message, Wheeler to Westmoreland, JCS 1843-67, 110036Z March 1967, Joint Exhibit 233, Westmoreland vs. CBS Microfiche File, USAWC Library.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Message, Westmoreland to Sharp, MAC 2715, 220302Z March 1967, Box 27, WPCMH.
6 Paper, Third Working Group, Report by the J-3 to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Courses of Action for Southeast Asia, JCS 2343/646-7, 13 January 1967, p. 4, WPCMH.
7 Gibbons, IV:578.
8 Address, Associated Press Managing Editors Luncheon, New York City, 24 April 1967, Box 1, WPCMH.
9 Gen. Donald V. Bennett Oral History, MHI.
10 McNaughton Notes on Discussions with the President, 27 April 1967, Westmoreland vs. CBS Exhibit 1400, Microfiche File, USAWC Library.
11 Zaffiri, Westmoreland, p. 5.
12 Speech transcript filed with Westmoreland History File #15, WPCMH.
13 Letter, Westmoreland to William T. Kyle, date not recorded, WPSCL.
14 Message, Wheeler to Westmoreland, JCS 2218-67, 241543Z March 1967, Box 27, WPCMH.
15 Kinnard, "Adventures in Two Worlds," p. 54.
16 Later Westmoreland would tell a college audience that in April 1967 he had been "called to Washington by the President to report to Congress and meet with the press to explain the war to increase public support." In explaining an optimistic press briefing he gave the following August, he told Charles MacDonald that "commanders must show optimism, else gloom and doom pervades the command. [I was] trying to give the US public a picture of confidence to offset negativism of the press."
17 Memorandum, Westmoreland to Dan M. Burt, Re: June, 1967, dated 14 February 1985, Box 19, WPSCL.
18 Lecture, "The Press in Vietnam," University of New Brunswick, Canada, 8 December 1972, Box 45, WPSCL.
19 Westmoreland v. CBS Microfiche, p. 29955, USAWC Library.