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]. Troops in Vietnam", "Finding Aid for Papers (ca. In Westmoreland v. CBS, Westmoreland sued Wallace and CBS for libel, and a lengthy legal process began. He published his autobiography the following year. In the end, we lost IndoChina to the communists. U.S. Army General William C. Westmoreland served four years in Vietnam, from 1964 to 1968, as COMUSMACV—Commander U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam.He was in command during the Tet Offensive, a surprise, country-wide attack on the U.S. forces by the combined forces of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam and the Vietnam People's Army in 1968. 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. My wife was my greatest asset. As those theories gained speed, a quote attributed to renowned North Vietnamese General Giap, the architect of the Tet Offensive, seemed to confirm theories that the ant-war effort had indeed contributed to the U.S.’s loss. Detailed in G.S.C. Westmoreland filed a lawsuit against CBS. This also failed to weaken North Vietnam's will to fight, and the Government of South Vietnam—a factor largely out of Westmoreland's control—never succeeded in establishing enough legitimacy to quell defections to the Viet Cong. Some of our policies were kind of … Westmoreland made a series of public and private remarks that suggested hope and optimism about the situation in Vietnam. The report, entitled Study on Military Professionalism,[29] had a profound influence on Army policies, beginning with Westmoreland's decision to end the policy that officers serving in Vietnam would be rotated into a different post after only six months. Backed at home by resolve, confidence, patience, determination, and continued support, we will prevail in Vietnam over the communist aggressor!" General Westmoreland Quotes Tet Offensive Free Daily Quotes ... General Quotes. By the end of 1967, Westmoreland reported that the rebels had lost 90,000 men. American troops were adapting to the conditions, Westmoreland said; the enemy was weakened and depleted and his theatre … [14], The Gulf of Tonkin incident of 2 August 1964 led to a dramatic increase in direct American participation in the war, with nearly 200,000 troops deployed by the end of the year. Yet, that assessment in itself is key to understanding the West's failure to defeat him. There was also entrenched guerrilla subversion throughout the heavily populated coastal regions by the Viet Cong. Turse said that many of the Vietnamese killed were actually innocent civilians, and the Vietnamese casualties were not just caused by military cross-fire but were a direct result of the U.S. policy and tactics, for example the policy "kill everything that moves" which enabled the U.S. soldiers to shoot civilians for "suspicious behavior". The Tet Offensive showed that Johnson and Westmoreland were lying about having “reached an important point where the end begins to come into view,” as Westmoreland … ), Westmoreland's War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam By Gregory Daddis p74, Conversations with History: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley, Westmoreland's War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam, By Gregory Daddis p74, The Ia Drang Campaign 1965: A Successful Operational Campaign or Mere Tactical Failure?, Peter J. Schifferle (1994), Parameters.To Change a War: General Harold K. Johnson and the PROVN Study, LEWIS SORLEY, Westmoreland: The General who Lost Vietnam By Lewis Sorley p96, Westmoreland's War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam, By Gregory Daddis p74-5, Murray Kempton, "Heart of Darkness," New York Review of Books, 24 Nov. 1988, p. 26, Superintendents of the United States Military Academy, Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Superintendent of the United States Military Academy, Viet Cong and PAVN strategy, organization and structure, National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, Order of National Security Merit, Tong-Il Medal, Order of National Security Merit, Gukseon Medal, Republic of Vietnam Distinguished Service Order, First Class (Army), Republic of Vietnam Distinguished Service Order, First Class (Air Force), Republic of Vietnam Distinguished Service Order, First Class (Navy), Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm, Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces Honor Medal, First Class, Republic of Vietnam Civil Actions Medal, First Class, Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation, Vietnam Civil Actions Medal Unit Citation, "William C. Westmoreland Is Dead at 91; General Led U.S. He wanted the North Vietnamese to leave their brothers in the South alone. He served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1968 to 1972. [25], Westmoreland repeatedly rebuffed or suppressed attempts by John Paul Vann and Lew Walt to shift to a "pacification" strategy. Just the names. A Conference Final Declaration, issued by the British chairman of the conference, provided that a general election be held by July 1956 to create a unified Vietnamese state. 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. Anytime it was advertised that I was going to be at a particular place, the radicals would be there, … We moved in to help the Vietnamese defend their country and confront the Viet Cong. Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Moreover, the Battle of Ia Drang was unusual in that US troops brought a large enemy formation to battle. [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. The military lead turbulent lives, but they are people like everybody else. In the 1974 film Hearts and Minds, Westmoreland opined that "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. [43], The General William C. Westmoreland Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina, is named in his honor. General Westmoreland’s forces and their South Vietnamese allies had fended off the attacks of National Liberation Front and North Vietnamese forces at the Vietnamese new year, Tet… Many of the battles in Vietnam were technically United States victories, with the United States Army in control of the field afterward; holding territory gained this way proved difficult, however. As Stanley Karnow noted, "Westy was a corporation executive in uniform."[10]. [2] His motive for entering West Point was "to see the world". TIME (1986). Tet Offensive, attacks staged by North Vietnamese forces beginning in the early hours of January 31, 1968, during the Vietnam War. An American commander losing men like that would hardly have lasted more than a few weeks." The numbers troubled Westmoreland, who feared that the press would not understand them. Westmoreland's anger was caused by the implication of the broadcast that his intent was fraudulent and that he ordered others to lie. Despite the inconclusive outcome of the Korean War, Americans expected their wars to end with the unconditional surrender of the enemy. I don't think I have been loved by my troops, but I think I have been respected. 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. S. He later served as U. [46], Westmoreland's military awards include:[47], United States Military Academy class of 1936, Retired from active service in July 1972. Westmoreland claimed that under his leadership, United States forces "won every battle". [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. "[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. On February 27th, 1968 General Westmoreland requested 205,000 additional troops from the US government. “War is Fear Cloaked in Courage” and 8 Other Quotes from General William Westmoreland Posted on November 6, 2015 by Lucy S. When Ben Carson was busted for lying about meeting General William Westmoreland, we stumbled upon a treasure trove of Westmoreland-isms that prove exactly why a presidential hopeful would want to meet him at all. The fashion for counter-insurgency thinking also denigrated the role of conventional warfare. [20] As the head of the MACV, he was known for highly publicized, positive assessments of U.S. military prospects in Vietnam. At the time, Westmoreland was focused on the Battle of Khe Sanh and considered the Tet Offensive to be a diversionary attack. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient. (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. [33][34] Others point out that the settlement occurred after two of Westmoreland's former intelligence officers, Major General Joseph McChristian and Colonel Gains Hawkins, testified to the accuracy of the substantive allegations of the broadcast, which were that Westmoreland ordered changes in intelligence reports on Viet Cong troop strengths for political reasons. 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. Westmoreland's strategy was ultimately politically unsuccessful. Westmoreland met her again in North Carolina when she was nineteen and a student at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Westmoreland was sent to Vietnam in 1963. "In evaluating the enemy strategy", he said, "it is evident to me that he believes our Achilles heel is our resolve. [28], Westmoreland served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1968 to 1972. President Johnson was critical of Westmoreland's defused corporate style, considering him overattentive to what government officials wanted to hear. President Johnson did not want the Vietnam War to broaden. I didn't marry her until after World War II, but she has complemented me in every job I've ever had. The alternative of sustained countrywide pacification operations, which would require massive use of US manpower, was never available to Westmoreland, because it was considered politically unacceptable. After the war, Westmoreland was the United States Army's Secretary of the General Staff from 1955 to 1958. Joined 12 Oct 44. He was a member of a distinguished West Point class that also included Creighton Abrams and Benjamin O. Davis Jr. Westmoreland graduated as first captain—the highest cadet rank—and received the Pershing Sword, which is "presented to cadet with highest level of military proficiency". This meeting consisted of Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, Nicholas… William Westmoreland Quotes ... 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. Westmoreland ran unsuccessfully for Governor of South Carolina as a Republican in the 1974 election. 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. "Taking it would have profound psychological impact on the Vietnamese in both the … 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. [7] He reached the temporary wartime rank of colonel, and on October 13, 1944, was appointed the chief of staff of the 9th Infantry Division.[8]. [51], 25th Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Headquarters Morning Report, 13 Oct 1944, Division Headquarters, 9th Infantry Division. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind. A viral email from 2004, titled “Blood on Kerry’s Hands,” claims that Giap confirmed that theory. Television is an instrument which can paralyze this country. I haven't yet figured out how I was made first captain, because I was not an outstanding student. Nine months afterward, when the My Lai Massacre reports started to break, Westmoreland resisted pressure from the incoming Nixon administration for a cover-up,[citation needed] and pressed for a full and impartial investigation by Lieutenant General William R. Peers. 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". Primary Duty: Chief of Staff". The award is given each year in recognition to an outstanding SAR veterans volunteer. 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. In January 1964, he became deputy commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), eventually succeeding Paul D. Harkins as commander, in June. His upper middle class family was involved in the local banking and textile industries. Just ten weeks after Westmoreland’s National Press Club speech, the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive. 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. When the soldiers came home from Vietnam, there were no parades, no celebrations. We were winning. The Vietnam memorial is a masterpiece. Nonetheless, Westmoreland was operating within longstanding army protocols of subordinating the military to civilian policymakers. [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. [19] Westmoreland's critics say his successor, General Creighton Abrams, deliberately switched emphasis away from what Westmoreland dubbed attrition. With the encouragement of Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Earle Wheeler, Westmoreland renewed an earlier request for more troops.… Mike Wallace interviewed Westmoreland for the CBS special The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception. per par 2, GO 87 Hq 9 Inf Div dtd 12 Oct 44. 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. [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. 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. Militarily, we succeeded in Vietnam. 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. During his four-year spell as commander in Vietnam (1964-68), Westmoreland was a textbook version of how a general should look: ramrod straight, well over 6ft … The infiltration by regular North Vietnam forces into the South could not be dealt with by aggressive action against the northern state because intervention by China was something the US government was concerned to avoid, but President Lyndon B. Johnson had given commitments to uphold South Vietnam against communist North Vietnam. He wanted the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam to make the case that the United States was winning. We set goals which we realistically could not achieve.” Tran Van Tra, writing in 1978 https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/william-westmoreland-quotes Historian Derek Frisby also criticized Westmoreland's view during an interview with Deutsche Welle: General William Westmoreland, who commanded US military operations in the Vietnam War, unhesitatingly believed Giap was a butcher for relentlessly sacrificing his soldiers in unwinnable battles. Now such a disregard for human life may make a formidable adversary, but it does not make a military genius. The couple married in May 1947 and had three children: a daughter, Katherine Stevens; a son, James Ripley II, and another daughter, Margaret Childs. 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]. By virtue of Vietnam, the U.S. held the line for 10 years and stopped the dominoes from falling. He was promoted to lieutenant general in July 1963 and was Commanding General of the XVIII Airborne Corps from 1963 to 1964. [30], Many military historians have pointed out that Westmoreland became Chief of Staff at the worst time in history with regard to the army. The last man in the world who should have been criticized was the American soldier. His war strategy was marked by heavy use of artillery and airpower and repeated attempts to engage the communists in large-unit battles, and thereby exploit the US's vastly superior firepower and technology. However, many hard-liners scorned these as too liberal. Westmoreland later served on a task force to improve educational standards in the state of South Carolina. He served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1968 to 1972. By the end of the summer of 1973 I thought it was virtually impossible for South Vietnam to survive. As the senior commander in Vietnam, I was aware of the potency of public opinion - and I worried about it. I've made this statement many times: If I would have to do it over again, I would have made known the forthcoming Tet Offensive. It was a difficult war against an unorthodox enemy. "Of course, he [Giap] was a formidable adversary", Westmoreland told correspondent W. Thomas Smith Jr. "Let me also say that Giap was trained in small-unit, guerrilla tactics, but he persisted in waging a big-unit war with terrible losses to his own men. 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. Westmoreland, his subordinates, superiors and successors also engaged in a profligate disregard for human life. 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. Political debate and public opinion led the Johnson administration to limit further increases in U.S. troop numbers in Vietnam. We had the best food any battlefield ever had. 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. In the final analysis, Giap won the war despite losing many battles, and as long as the army survived to fight another day, the idea of Vietnam lived in the hearts of the people who would support it, and that is the essence of "revolutionary war". In 1994, Vietnam veteran Samuel Zaffiri published a biography, Westmoreland: A Biography of General William C. Westmoreland. Just days before the lawsuit was to go to the jury, Westmoreland suddenly settled with CBS, and they issued a joint statement of understanding. And as the philosophy of the Orient expresses it: Life is not important. In 1954, he completed a three-month management program at Harvard Business School. 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 … But President Lyndon B. Johnson's rejection of the proposal showed that America's commitment to the war in Vietnam was waning. 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. 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. He adopted a strategy of attrition against the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. The attempted French re-colonization of Vietnam following World War II culminated in a decisive French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. He was Superintendent of the United States Military Academy from 1960 to 1963. He then commanded the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. He then completed the Army War College as a student in 1951, and stayed as an instructor from 1951 to 1952. It became very clear that Hanoi was in effect strategically running the Viet Cong operation. He also accused Westmoreland of concealing evidence of atrocities from the American public when he was the Army Chief of Staff.[37]. My conclusion is that the Tet Offensive was a turning point in the war. He was buried on July 23, 2005, at the West Point Cemetery, United States Military Academy. [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.