William Westmoreland
“In evaluating the enemy strategy, it is evident to me that he believes our Achilles heel is our resolve.”
The man who would become famous for the debacle in Southeast Asia in the 1970s was born on 26 March of 1914 to a family in Spartanburg, South Carolina that had a tradition of military service dating back to the American Revolution. As a young man he reached the rank of Eagle Scout before entering the Citadel Military College in South Carolina, where he studied for a year before receiving an appointment to West Point, graduating in 1936 at the top of his class.
Entering into the US Army as an artillery officer, he served at several posts over the next few years until the entry of the country into the United States following the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor. By now a 1st Lieutenant, he was placed in command of a battery, and was deployed to North Africa with the 9th Infantry Division, with which he would serve to the end of the war, with a temporary Colonel’s rank by 1945.
Superintendent Westmoreland at the 1961 Army-Navy Game
After the end of the war Westmoreland was promoted to a permanent rank of Captain, and undertook parachute training, earning his jump wings and command of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. This move may well have been in part due to Westmoreland’s friendship with General Maxwell Taylor, whom he had impressed during the campaign in Sicily during the war, and by 1950 he was serving as Chief of Staff of the 82nd Airborne Division before taking a new post as an instructor at the US Army War College.
Westmoreland and Secretary of Defense McNamara greet South Vietnamese officers
Now a Major, Westmoreland held his teaching post for two years before being reassigned to command an airborne force operating in the Korean War as that conflict entered into its final bloody stages. A promotion to Brigadier General came in 1952 with his reassignment to Korea, and after he returned to the United States in late 1953 he was assigned to the pentagon as G-1 for Manpower Control within the Army. This was followed by a degree in business management from Harvard, and in 1955 he took a post as Secretary to Army Chief of Staff Taylor.
Westmoreland leaves a helicopter during a meeting with Australian troops in Vietnam
After three years in that post Westmoreland took command of Taylor’s old division; the famous 101st Airborne, before being named superintendent of West Point in 1960. During this time the failure of France to hold Indochina from a communist revolution had failed, resulting in the independence of Vietnam as a divided nation, with the communists in the north and anticommunists in the south. As the French withdrew, the United States began to rapidly increase its commitment to the southern government in Saigon, identifying Vietnam as a major new theater of the Cold War.
Westmoreland rides a jeep with President Lyndon Johnson at Cam Ranh Bay, RVN
By 1964 Westmoreland had three stars as a Lt. General, and appointed as deputy commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), serving under General Paul Harkins. This was only to last for a few months, however, as Westmoreland was appointed to succeed Harkins in June of that year, the former commander having been increasingly poorly viewed by both the press and his superiors in Washington. Now the commander of the American war effort in Vietnam, Westmoreland held the esteem of both President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Westmoreland oversaw the full Americanization of the war, with massive surges of US troops augmenting and in many cases supplanting the local ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam).
A gathering of some of the most influential figures of the war in Vietnam (left to right: US President Johnson, Westmoreland, RVN President Thieu, RVN Vice President Ky)
Named Man of the Year for 1965 by TIME magazine, Westmoreland’s strategy for the war in Vietnam was a reflection of his business-like attitude; reflecting raw statistics and in turn attrition rates to defeat the southern Vietcong insurgency as well as the regular North Vietnamese Army. In order to further this goal, Westmoreland requested ever more troops, resulting eventually in over a half million American troops deployed in country by 1968.
Westmoreland meets with President Johnson in the Oval Office
As 1968 dawned all eyes were on the besieged US Marine base at Khe Sahn, where it was believed that Hanoi hoped to repeat the victory at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 that had sounded the death knell for the French colonial administration of the country. While Westmoreland and MACV were focused on the base, they failed to notice the massing of communist forces in South Vietnam for a massive attack, which occurred at the Tet holiday at the end of January. Suddenly, Vietcong units backed by infiltrated NVA troops attacked almost every major city and base in the country almost simultaneously, sewing mass confusion. Despite the achievement of surprise, the communist plan required the Saigon government to collapse and then ARVN to disintegrate or join with a concurrent mass revolution amongst the populace of the South. When this failed to materialize the offensive was blunted, with the VC all but annihilated. From here on the nature of the war would change, with infiltrated notherners replacing the home-grown VC.
Westmoreland speaks to the press at the White House in 1968, months after the Tet Offensive
Despite the hard-fought military victory of Tet (particularly in the ancient city of Hue), the attacks were well publicized in the United States, and were taken as proof that Westmoreland and the Johnson Administration had been lying to the public about the status of the war. Having claimed for years that the end was in sight, the images on America’s televisions and newspapers appeared to show an enemy that was still determined and capable, with others, particularly in infamous photo of the summary execution of a VC officer captured in Saigon after the murder of an ARVN officer and his entire family, did incalculable damage. The My Lai Massacre perpetrated by US troops months later further eroded Westmoreland’s prestige at home, and in June Westmoreland was appointed as Chief of Staff of the US Army, rotating out of Vietnam.
Westmoreland briefs the President on the situation in Vietnam
In his position as Chief of Staff Vietnam remained a primary concern of both Westmoreland and the Army as a whole. It was under his leadership that a comprehensive investigation into My Lai blossomed into a deep examination of the erosion of discipline in the US Army that was spreading as the quagmire in Vietnam wore on. This allowed for some notable policy changes, although Westmoreland ordered it kept sealed for two years following its conclusion. The other major event of “Westie”’s term was the shift to an all volunteer force, which had been a major campaign position of Richard Nixon. Westmoreland was opposed to the change, but in the end was forced to accept it and subsequently made several changes aimed at making the Army more appealing to volunteers.
Chief of Staff Westmoreland speaks at a conference in Taiwan
In 1972 Westmoreland retired from the US Army at the age of 58, decling a post as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Upon his return to civilian life he made an abortive campaign for the governorship of South Carolina in 1974, and released a memoir; A Soldier Reports two years later. In 1982 Westmoreland filed a lawsuit against CBS for libel after a documentary on Vietnam accused the retired general of falsifying numbers to maintain domestic support for the war during his tenure at MACV. The ensuing legal process continued until shortly before the actual trial was to commence, when Westmoreland and CBS settled out of court.
Westmoreland attends the dedication of a veterans’ memorial in the 1980s
Despite his stubbornness in refusing to accept personal responsibility for the US failure in Vietnam, Westmoreland also remained a diligent defender of the men who served under him, remaining an influential speaker and ally of Vietnam Veterans as they faced difficulty following their own return to civilian life. By the first years of the 21st century, however, the general’s health was in decline as he struggled with Alzheimer’s disease, and he died on 18 July of 2005, being buried in the West Point Cemetery.
