Supposedly, General Giap had written in How We Won the War that in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive of 1968, the Communist leaders in Vietnam had … Regardless, U.S. and South Vietnamese troops successfully fought off the attacks during the Tet Offensive, and the communist forces took heavy losses, but the ferocity of the assault shook public confidence in Westmoreland's previous assurances about the state of the war. A more minor case, but one revealing of Westmoreland’s character, stemmed from his unwillingness to level with his senior Marine subordinate at the time of the 1968 Tet Offensive. I didn't marry her until after World War II, but she has complemented me in every job I've ever had. General Westmoreland Quotes Tet Offensive Free Daily Quotes ... General Quotes. TIME (1986). This request would have put more than 700,000 American soldiers in Vietnam (Schmitz, 232). ", Westmoreland first met his future wife, Katherine (Kitsy) Stevens Van Deusen, while stationed at Fort Sill; she was nine years old at the time and was the daughter of the post executive officer, Colonel Edwin R. Van Deusen. There was also entrenched guerrilla subversion throughout the heavily populated coastal regions by the Viet Cong. He concluded that, after having "spoken to survivors of massacres by United States forces at Phi Phu, Trieu Ai, My Luoc and so many other hamlets, I can say with certainty that Westmoreland's assessment was false". Westmoreland met her again in North Carolina when she was nineteen and a student at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1968 to 1972. We were winning. [citation needed]. With the encouragement of Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Earle Wheeler, Westmoreland renewed an earlier request for more troops.… The Vietnam memorial is a masterpiece. It became very clear that Hanoi was in effect strategically running the Viet Cong operation. The award is given each year in recognition to an outstanding SAR veterans volunteer. General Johnson turned out to be prescient. "Capture Hué," General Westmoreland answered without hesitation, explaining the city was the symbol of a unified Vietnam. He did not order them changed, but instead did not include the information in reporting to Washington, which in his view was not appropriate to report. He was promoted to lieutenant general in July 1963 and was Commanding General of the XVIII Airborne Corps from 1963 to 1964. 1900–2000 (Gifts to Manuscripts Division 2001, South Caroliniana Library)", "General William Westmoreland, Friend of ASA, Dies", "South Carolina General Assembly 109th Session, 1991–1992, Bill 918", "Laureates by Year – The Lincoln Academy of Illinois", "General William Westmoreland Uniform – UNIFORMS [REF] USA", "Biography General William Childs Westmoreland", An article on the CBS documentary controversy by LTC Evan Parrott for the Air War College, PDF copies of MG McChristian's deposition for the CBS trial, A biography on William Westmoreland at Encyclopaedia Britannica, MG McChristian's deposition concerning his participation in the documentary and clarifying his observation of the facts, Analysis of the broadcast by Professor Peter Rollins of Oklahoma State University, hosted on Vietnam Veterans website, 1981 video interview with Westmoreland about U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, Initial report on the death of Westmoreland, Obituary: General Commanded Troops in Vietnam, Gen. Westmoreland, Who Led U.S. in Vietnam, Dies, Commander of US forces in Vietnam dies aged 91, General Westmoreland's Death Wish and the War in Iraq, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Westmoreland&oldid=996093305, United States Army personnel of World War II, United States Army personnel of the Korean War, United States Army personnel of the Vietnam War, Candidates in the 1968 United States presidential election, Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (US Army), Recipients of the National Order of Vietnam, Recipients of the Gallantry Cross (Vietnam), Recipients of the Order of Military Merit (Korea), Recipients of the Croix de Guerre (France), People from Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States Army Command and General Staff College alumni, Articles with dead external links from August 2010, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2009, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2015, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2019, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Commander, 34th Field Artillery Battalion, 9th Infantry Division; 1943–1944, Chief of Staff, 9th Infantry Division; October 13, 1944 to 1946, Commander, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division; 1946 to 1947, Chief of Staff, 82d Airborne Division; 1947 to 1950, Instructor, Army Command and General Staff College; 1950 to 1951, Instructor, Army War College; 1951 to November 1952, 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team; November 1952 to 1953, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff, G–1, for Manpower; 1953 to 1955, Secretary of the General Staff; 1955 to 1958, Commanding General, 101st Airborne Division; 1958 to 1960, Superintendent, United States Military Academy; 1 July 1960 to 27 June 1963, Commanding General, XVIIIth Airborne Corps; July 1963 to December 1963, Deputy Commander, United States Military Assistance Command Vietnam; January 1964 to June 1964, Commander, United States Military Assistance Command Vietnam; June 1964 to June 1968, Chief of Staff, United States Army; July 3, 1968 to June 30, 1972, This page was last edited on 24 December 2020, at 14:04. Although the decision had been made in late 1967, it was widely seen in the media as a punishment for being caught off guard by the communist assault. An American commander losing men like that would hardly have lasted more than a few weeks." In 1970, as Chief of Staff, in response to the My Lai Massacre by United States Army forces (and subsequent cover up by the Army chain of command), he commissioned an army investigation that compiled a comprehensive and seminal study of leadership within the army during the Vietnam War demonstrating a severe erosion of adherence to the army's officer code of "Duty, Honor, Country". Although presented as a consensus view, this document was not accepted by the delegates of either the State of Vietnam or the United States. The military lead turbulent lives, but they are people like everybody else. [27], In June 1968, Westmoreland was replaced by General Creighton Abrams, the decision being announced shortly after the Tet Offensive. But we did not lose Southeast Asia. President Johnson did not want the Vietnam War to broaden. He wanted the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam to make the case that the United States was winning. Revisionists point to Abrams's first big operation being a tactical success that disrupted North Vietnamese build up, but resulted in the Battle of Hamburger Hill, a political disaster that effectively curtailed Abrams's freedom to continue with such operations.[16][17][18]. However, the government wished to win at low cost, and policymakers received McNamara's interpretation indicating huge American casualties in prospect, prompting a reassessment of what could be achieved. They should have criticized me. In 1962, Westmoreland was admitted as an honorary member of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati. "Taking it would have profound psychological impact on the Vietnamese in both the … By the time Westmoreland became army commander in South Vietnam, the option of a Korea-type settlement with a large demilitarised zone separating north and south, favored by military and diplomatic figures, had been rejected by the US government, whose objectives were to achieve a decisive victory, and not to use vastly greater resources. He also made use of the United States' edge in artillery and air power, both in tactical confrontations and in relentless strategic bombing of North Vietnam. On this day in 1965, Gen. William Westmoreland said that the Communist insurgency in South Vietnam could be defeated if an additional 44 battalions of U.S. combat troops were placed under his command. [11][12] The Geneva Conference (April 26 – July 20, 1954) discussed the possibility of restoring peace in Indochina, and temporarily separated Vietnam into two zones, a northern zone to be governed by the Việt Minh, and a southern zone to be governed by the State of Vietnam, then headed by former emperor Bảo Đại. In February 1966, at a strategy meeting in Honolulu, President Lyndon Johnson asked his commander in Vietnam, Gen. William Westmoreland, what his next step might be if he were the enemy commander. [13][14][15], Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General Harold Keith Johnson, and subsequently historians such as Harry G. Summers, Jr. came to see US goals as having become mutually inconsistent, because defeating the Communists would require declaring a national emergency and fully mobilising the resources of the US. William C. Westmoreland viewed the post-Tet situation as an opportunity for an American offensive that would further debilitate the enemy and deny any future resurgence. A viral email from 2004, titled “Blood on Kerry’s Hands,” claims that Giap confirmed that theory. Westmoreland's anger was caused by the implication of the broadcast that his intent was fraudulent and that he ordered others to lie. In 1994, Vietnam veteran Samuel Zaffiri published a biography, Westmoreland: A Biography of General William C. Westmoreland. [2] His motive for entering West Point was "to see the world". My wife was my greatest asset. Instead, he focused on "positive indicators", which ultimately turned worthless when the Tet Offensive occurred, since all his pronouncements of "positive indicators" did not hint at the possibility of such a last-gasp dramatic event. He published his autobiography the following year. [9] He commanded the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team in operations in Korea from 1952 to 1953. By his own admission, by early 1969, I think, he had lost, what, a half million soldiers? "[24] However, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF) were able to dictate the pace of attrition to fit their own goals: by continuing to fight a guerrilla war and avoiding large-unit battles, they denied the Americans the chance to fight the kind of war they were best at, and they ensured that attrition would wear down the American public's support for the war faster than they. Anytime it was advertised that I was going to be at a particular place, the radicals would be there, … He then commanded the 101st Airborne Division from 1958 to 1960. The last man in the world who should have been criticized was the American soldier. [42], Westmoreland died on July 18, 2005, at the age of 91 at the Bishop Gadsden retirement home in Charleston, South Carolina. He was unable to use the absolutist stance that "we can't win unless we expand the war". This meeting consisted of Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, Nicholas… He was Superintendent of the United States Military Academy from 1960 to 1963. Tet Offensive would lead many to question this foreseeable ending which Westmoreland had declared during his speech. In 1939, he was promoted to first lieutenant, after which he was a battery commander and battalion staff officer with the 8th Field Artillery at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. From 1947 to 1950, he served as chief of staff for the 82nd Airborne Division. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told President Lyndon B. Johnson in April that Westmoreland was "the best we have, without question". Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam (2011) by Lewis Sorley, p. 96. For the remainder of his life, Westmoreland maintained that the United States did not lose the war in Vietnam; he stated instead that "our country did not fulfill its commitment to South Vietnam. His upper middle class family was involved in the local banking and textile industries. The parade, attended by 200,000 Vietnam veterans and more than half a million spectators, did much to repair the rift between Vietnam veterans and the American public.[31][32]. 1900–2005) of General William Childs Westmoreland", "Papers of Gen. William Westmoreland (USCS Autumn 1999)", "Battlefield Vietnam – Dien Bien Phu, the legacy", Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies and Colonel Harry G. Summers, "Vietnam, a television history: Tet (1968) minute 3:24", "U.S. General Considered Nuclear Response in Vietnam War, Cables Show", "Vietnam Veterans In Chicago Parade Cheered By Crowds", At peace, at last after 11 years and an emotional parade, Vietnam vets finally feel welcome, Vo Nguyen Giap – 'A master of revolutionary war', "While the General's at War His Lady Does Hospital Work", "Gen. William Childs Westmoreland Papers, ca. After returning to the United States, Westmoreland was deputy assistant chief of staff, G–1, for manpower control on the Army staff from 1953 to 1955. Westmoreland's response, to those Americans who criticized the high casualty rate of Vietnamese civilians, was: "It does deprive the enemy of the population, doesn't it? However, a few days after the tragedy, he had praised the same involved unit on the "outstanding job", for the "U.S. infantrymen had killed 128 Communists [sic] in a bloody day-long battle". We moved in to help the Vietnamese defend their country and confront the Viet Cong. He was an instructor at the Army Command and General Staff College from 1950 to 1951. Detailed in G.S.C. It's the first war we've ever fought on the television screen and the first war that our country ever fought where the media had full reign. Westmoreland later served on a task force to improve educational standards in the state of South Carolina. And as the philosophy of the Orient expresses it: Life is not important. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind. [51], 25th Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Headquarters Morning Report, 13 Oct 1944, Division Headquarters, 9th Infantry Division. After the war, Westmoreland completed Airborne training at the Infantry School in 1946. Moreover, the Battle of Ia Drang was unusual in that US troops brought a large enemy formation to battle. Who knew what the hell the man said? BrainyQuote has been providing inspirational quotes since 2001 to our worldwide community. He was buried on July 23, 2005, at the West Point Cemetery, United States Military Academy. https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/william-westmoreland-quotes [16][17] Much of the thinking about defense was by academics turned government advisors who concentrated on nuclear weapons, seen as making conventional war obsolete. Growing United States casualties and the draft undermined United States support for the war, while large-scale casualties among non-combatants weakened South Vietnamese support. General William Childs Westmoreland was the US Army commander who led American forces during the early years of the Vietnam War.Having entered the service in 1932, he distinguished himself during World War II and the Korean War.Appointed to lead US forces in Vietnam in 1964, he sought to defeat the Viet Cong through the large-scale use of artillery, air power, and large-unit battles. As Stanley Karnow noted, "Westy was a corporation executive in uniform."[10]. Wallace's memoir is generally sympathetic to Westmoreland, although he makes it clear he disagreed with him on issues surrounding the Vietnam War and the Nixon Administration's policies in Southeast Asia. He also accused Westmoreland of concealing evidence of atrocities from the American public when he was the Army Chief of Staff.[37]. [16][17][18], In public at least, he continued to be sanguine about the progress being made throughout his time in Vietnam, though supportive journalist James Reston thought Westmoreland's characterizing of the conflict as attrition warfare presented his generalship in a misleading light. [26] Although the communists were severely depleted by the heavy fighting at Khe Sanh when their conventional assaults were battered by American firepower, as well as tens of thousands of deaths in the Tet Offensive, American political opinion and the panic engendered by the communist surprise sapped U.S. support for the war, even though the events of early 1968 put the United States and South Vietnam into a much stronger military position. Westmoreland ran unsuccessfully for Governor of South Carolina as a Republican in the 1974 election. Westmoreland filed a lawsuit against CBS. He then completed the Army War College as a student in 1951, and stayed as an instructor from 1951 to 1952. He went on to say, Once the expenditure of effort exceeds the value of the political object, the object must be renounced. I don't think I have been loved by my troops, but I think I have been respected. On February 27th, 1968 General Westmoreland requested 205,000 additional troops from the US government. In a 1998 interview for George magazine, Westmoreland criticized the battlefield prowess of his direct opponent, North Vietnamese general Võ Nguyên Giáp. So they built the Vietnam Memorial for themselves. "[36], Westmoreland's view has been heavily criticized by Nick Turse, the author of the book Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. The general's testimony yesterday ranged over a variety of matters, from when he learned that North Vietnamese forces were massing for what became the Tet offensive of January 1968 - … [39][40][41], Just hours after Westmoreland was sworn in as Army Chief of Staff on July 7, 1968, his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Van Deusen (commander of 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment), was killed when his helicopter was shot down in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. As the senior commander in Vietnam, I was aware of the potency of public opinion - and I worried about it. In 1954, he completed a three-month management program at Harvard Business School. William Childs Westmoreland (March 26, 1914 – July 18, 2005) was a United States Army General, who commanded US military operations in the Vietnam War at its peak (1964–68), during the Tet Offensive.He adopted a strategy of attrition against the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese Army.He later served as U.S. Army Chief of Staff from 1968 to 1972. The numbers troubled Westmoreland, who feared that the press would not understand them. Just days before the lawsuit was to go to the jury, Westmoreland suddenly settled with CBS, and they issued a joint statement of understanding. Consistent with the enthusiasm of Robert McNamara for statistics, Westmoreland placed emphasis on body count and cited the Battle of Ia Drang as evidence the communists were losing. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient. Politicians start wars. He adopted a strategy of attrition against the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. The documentary, shown on January 23, 1982, and prepared largely by CBS producer George Crile III, alleged that Westmoreland and others had deliberately understated Viet Cong troop strength during 1967 in order to maintain U.S. troop morale and domestic support for the war. Giap understood that protracted warfare would cost many lives but that did not always translate into winning or losing the war. Viet Cong and PAVN strategy, organization and structure meant Westmoreland faced a dual threat. However, to lessen the impact of this damaging report, Westmoreland ordered that the document be kept on "close hold" across the entire Army for a period of two years and not disseminated to War College attendees. Mike Wallace interviewed Westmoreland for the CBS special The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception. A deposition by McChristian indicates that his organization developed improved intelligence on the number of irregular Viet Cong combatants shortly before he left Vietnam on a regularly scheduled rotation. How in the heck could they? At the age of 15, William became an Eagle Scout at Troop 1 Boy Scouts, and was recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo from the Boy Scouts of America as a young adult. I do not believe that the men who served in uniform in Vietnam have been given the credit they deserve. It is not clear if Khe Sanh was meant to be distraction for the Tet Offensive or vice versa;[22] sometimes this is called the Riddle of Khe Sanh. Militarily, we succeeded in Vietnam. Television is an instrument which can paralyze this country. When I took command in Vietnam, I gave great emphasis to food and medical care - and to the mail. William Childs Westmoreland (March 26, 1914 – July 18, 2005) was a United States Army General, most notably commander of United States forces during the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968. [30], Many military historians have pointed out that Westmoreland became Chief of Staff at the worst time in history with regard to the army. "There stood General Westmoreland himself," said Sergeant John Setelin. By the time he was re-assigned as Army Chief of Staff, United States military forces in Vietnam had reached a peak of 535,000 personnel. In the second half of 1967, the United States military chief in Vietnam, General William C. Westmoreland, made three trips home brief President Lyndon Johnsonon the progress of the war. In World War II, Westmoreland saw combat with the 34th Field Artillery Battalion, 9th Infantry Division, in Tunisia, Sicily, France, and Germany; he commanded the 34th Battalion in Tunisia and Sicily. Westmoreland made a series of public and private remarks that suggested hope and optimism about the situation in Vietnam. Troops in Vietnam", "Finding Aid for Papers (ca. My conclusion is that the Tet Offensive was a turning point in the war. Regular North Vietnamese army units infiltrating across the remote border were apparently concentrating to mount an offensive and Westmoreland considered this the danger that had to be tackled immediately. Westmoreland's strategy was ultimately politically unsuccessful. He told President Lyndon B. Johnson that the Vietcong would be unable to replenish those kinds of numbers and that the end of the war was near. He wanted the North Vietnamese to leave their brothers in the South alone. That’s why LBJ called General William Westmoreland home in November 1967. Post 1969 Westmoreland also made efforts to investigate the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre a year after the event occurred. [23], Westmoreland was convinced that the Vietnamese communists could be destroyed by fighting a war of attrition that, theoretically, would render the Vietnam People's Army unable to fight. [45], William Westmoreland was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 1970 in the area of Government. Some contend that Judge Leval's instructions to the jury over what constituted "actual malice" to prove libel convinced Westmoreland's lawyers that he was certain to lose. We were succeeding. Following graduation from West Point in 1936, Westmoreland became an artillery officer and served in several assignments with the 18th Field Artillery at Fort Sill. Westmoreland was promoted to Brigadier General in November 1952 at the age of 38, making him one of the youngest U.S. Army generals in the post-World War II era. Available on microfilm at National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Missouri. [21] Westmoreland had little appreciation of the patience of the American public for his time frame, and was struggling to persuade President Johnson to approve widening the war into Cambodia and Laos in order to interdict the Ho Chi Minh trail. [43], The General William C. Westmoreland Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina, is named in his honor. The attempted French re-colonization of Vietnam following World War II culminated in a decisive French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. When LBJ continued to insist, after Tet, that the war effort was still on track, his message was undercut by a leak of General Westmoreland's request for 206,000 more U.S. troops. However, as time went on, the strengthening of communist combat forces in the South led to regular requests for increases in U.S. troop strength, from 16,000 when he arrived to its peak of 535,000 in 1968 when he was promoted to Army chief of staff. [3][4][5] Westmoreland also served as the superintendent of the Protestant Sunday School Teachers.[6]. (Entry reads: "O-20223 Westmoreland, William C Col, Reld fr asdg HQ 9 Inf Div Arty & asgd to Div Hq 9 Inf Div per par 1, SO 241 HQ 9 Inf Div dtd 12 Oct 44. The crucial Tet offensive is recounted in Don Oberdorfer's Tet! He reported this. Westmoreland was sent to Vietnam in 1963. The fashion for counter-insurgency thinking also denigrated the role of conventional warfare. In more than a decade of analyzing long-classified military criminal investigation files, court-martial transcripts, Congressional studies, contemporaneous journalism and the testimony of United States soldiers and Vietnamese civilians, I found that Gen. William C. 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