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Q: Your latest book is titled Westmoreland: The
General Who Lost Vietnam. Why did you choose that subtitle for the book,
and what do you see as Westmoreland's biggest mistakes?
A: Great first question! The response, to be credible, will
have to be a bit lengthy. General Westmoreland commanded U.S. forces in Vietnam
for four years (1964-1968). When, in 1965, the United States began introducing
large numbers of ground forces to help the South Vietnamese fight the war,
Westmoreland essentially took over the conflict and sought to win it using the
U.S. forces being deployed. In response to repeated Westmoreland requests for
more and more troops, the U.S. forces deployed eventually grew to well over
half a million, numbering 543,400 at the peak.
Westmoreland decided to fight a war of attrition. His
premise was that, if he could inflict sufficient casualties on the enemy (the
North Vietnamese Communists and the controlled indigenous Viet Cong in South
Vietnam), they would lose heart and cease their aggression. In such a war the
measure of merit was body count. Westmoreland employed "search and
destroy" tactics, typically involving large-scale operations (multi-battalion
and sometimes even multi-division) seeking enemy forces in the deep jungles of
South Vietnam's western reaches adjacent to the borders with Laos and Cambodia.
It is important to know that Westmoreland had complete
freedom of action to choose and employ this approach. Over the years of his
command his forces did indeed kill large numbers of enemy, really a horrifying
number. But the predicted outcome did not result. The enemy did not lose heart
or cease his aggression. Instead he kept sending more and more replacements to
make up his losses. Thus Westmoreland had nothing to show for his efforts. He
was on a treadmill.
Westmoreland also failed to grasp the significance of the
friendly casualties his forces were taking. At one point Senator
"Fritz" Hollings from Westmoreland's home state of South Carolina
visited Vietnam, where Westmoreland told him, "We're killing these
people," the enemy, "at a ratio of ten to one." Responded
Hollings, "Westy, the American people don't care about the ten. They care
about the one." Westmoreland never seemed to get it.
Meanwhile, completely focused on his unavailing tactical
approach, Westmoreland neglected two other key responsibilities: building up
South Vietnam's armed forces so they could progressively take over more
responsibility for their nation's protection, and rooting out the covert
Communist infrastructure in South Vietnam's hamlets and villages where, by use
of terror and coercion, the enemy was keeping the rural populace under
domination. The latter task was called pacification. Said General Phil
Davidson, Westmoreland's J-2 (chief intelligence officer), "Westmoreland's
interest always lay in the big-unit war. Pacification bored him."
Westmoreland always maintained that he was doing a great
deal to build up the South Vietnamese forces, but there was no substance to the
claim. Instead Westmoreland gave the best new weaponry, such as the M-16 rifle,
to U.S. forces first, leaving the South Vietnamese for year after year equipped
with castoff World War II-vintage U.S. equipment like M-1 rifles and carbines.
This was an enormous disadvantage, since they were fighting an enemy equipped
by its backers, the Soviet Union and China, with the best available modern
weaponry, to include the great AK-47 assault rifle.
After Westmoreland there came a U.S. commander who
understood the nature of the war and devised a far more effective approach to
its conduct, but even though things went much better the United States Congress
(and, to some lesser degree, the public and much of the media) had by then had
enough of this seemingly endless war and the South Vietnamese were basically
abandoned.
That outcome was a direct result of the fact that General
Westmoreland had by his unavailing approach squandered four years of support
for American involvement in the war, and that is why he deserves to be regarded
as "The General Who Lost Vietnam."
Q: You write, "Taken altogether, the life of William Childs Westmoreland
turned out to be infinitely sad." How did Vietnam affect Westmoreland
personally, and did he ever doubt the course that he had chosen to follow?
A: Others who served with Westmoreland in Vietnam later
reflected, candidly and insightfully, on the results of their approach to
conduct of the war. Wrote General William DePuy, who as Westmoreland's J-3
(chief operations officer) had helped develop his search and destroy approach,
"We ended up with no operational plan that had the slightest chance of
ending the war favorably." Said General Fred Weyand, later Army Chief
of Staff: "The Vietnam War was not unwinnable. It was just not winnable
Westmoreland's way."
Westmoreland could not, or would not, admit to any failures
of concept or execution in his conduct of the war. Noted Charles
MacDonald, the distinguished military historian who was ghost writer for
Westmoreland's memoirs, "from the beginning Westmoreland probably expected
to write a memoir of victory similar to [General Eisenhower's] Crusade in
Europe and the books of other successful American generals of the
past" and "the defeat in Vietnam had not deterred him from
this."
In retirement Westmoreland ran an inept and unsuccessful
campaign to become governor of South Carolina, then unwisely (against the
advice of experienced high-powered lawyers who had his interests at heart) sued
CBS for libel after the network broadcast a documentary charging Westmoreland
with having manipulated data on enemy strength figures during the Vietnam War.
Following a lengthy trial, Westmoreland withdrew his suit only days before the
case would have gone to the jury. In exchange he received a vanilla statement
from CBS, which he claimed exonerated him. "The effort to defame, dishonor
and destroy me and those under my command had been exposed and defeated,"
he asserted. "I therefore withdrew from the battlefield, all flags
flying."
Editorial opinion was not so favorable. The New York
Times succinctly stated the prevailing reaction. "At the end,"
it concluded, "[General Westmoreland] stood in imminent danger of having a
jury confirm the essential truth of the CBS report. For, in court, as on the
original program, the general could not get past the testimony of high-ranking
former subordinates who confirmed his having colored some intelligence
information."
In later years Westmoreland viewed himself as very much put
upon. "My years away have been fraught with challenges, frustrations, and
sadness," he told a hometown audience. "Nobody has taken more guff
than I have," he claimed, "and I am not apologizing for a damn
thing—nothing, and I welcome being the point man!" That outlook, no
second-guessing of himself and no regrets, persisted through the end of his
life.
Observed a former aide to the general, "Westmoreland's
life since Vietnam has been miserable." Westmoreland himself contributed
much to that outcome. "The Vietnam War is my number one priority," he
told an interviewer some years after retirement. "I've tried to spread
myself thin and visit all sections of the country."
But then, in an assertion completely undermining the meaning
and purpose of years of incessant, even frantic, self-justifying activity,
Westmoreland told a college audience that "in the scope of history,
Vietnam is not going to be a big deal. It won't float to the top as a major
endeavor."
In his later years, then, Westmoreland, widely regarded as a
general who lost his war, also lost his only run for political office, lost his
libel suit, and lost his reputation. It was a sad ending for a man who for most
of his life and career had led what seemed to be a charmed existence.
Westmoreland's ultimate failure would have earned him more
compassion, it seems certain, had he not personally been so fundamentally to
blame for the endless self-promotion that elevated him to positions and
responsibilities beyond his capacity. "It's the aggressive guy who gets
his share—plus," Westmoreland maintained. "That principle applies to
most anything."
Q: In your book A Better War, you contrast Westmoreland's approach
unfavorably with that of his successor, General Creighton Abrams, who took over
in 1968, and you write that during the last several years of the war, Abrams,
Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, and the CIA's William Colby "came very close
to achieving the elusive goal of a viable nation and a lasting peace." How
do you think they managed to come close, and why did they ultimately fail to
reach that goal?
A: That is, of course, another complex story that deserves to
be told at length and in detail. Just to encapsulate briefly, Abrams, Bunker,
and Colby shared a view of the war that was wholly at variance with
Westmoreland's. In place of a war of attrition they embarked on what might be
termed a war of population security. This, they maintained, must be "One
War" in which combat actions (but much revised), improvement of South
Vietnam's armed forces, and pacification were of equal importance and equal
priority.
Said General Fred Weyand, "The tactics changed within
fifteen minutes of Abrams's taking command." Instead of search and
destroy operations, forces now concentrated on clear and hold missions in which
the "hold" was provided by greatly expanded and improved South Vietnamese
Territorial Forces. Thousands of patrols and ambushes replaced the big-unit
operations. And, instead of thrashing about in the deep jungle, seeking
to bring the enemy to battle at times and in places of his own choosing—the
typical maneuver of the earlier era—allied forces now set up positions sited to
protect populated areas from invading forces. This put friendly forces in more
advantageous situations and forced the enemy to come through them to gain
access to the population, the real objective of both sides in the war.
Confirmed a study group led by Daniel Ellsberg after an
inspection tour in Vietnam: "We are using more small patrols for
intelligence and spoiling, and we are conducting fewer large-scale sweeps, and
those sweeps that we are conducting are smaller in territorial scope. General
Abrams has begun to concentrate much more on area control than on kills."
Body count was thus no longer the measure of merit. Instead
it was population living in secure areas. Said General Abrams, in a typical
comment to subordinate commanders, "The body count does not have much to
do with the outcome of the war. Some of the things I do think important are
that we preempt or defeat the enemy's major military operations and eliminate
or render ineffective the major portion of his guerrillas and his
infrastructure—the political, administrative and para-military structure on
which his whole movement depends."
Later Abrams went further, saying, "I don't think it
makes any difference how many losses he [the enemy] takes. I don't think
that makes any difference." Later still he told a regional conference
of U.S. ambassadors of his conviction that, "in the whole picture of the
war, the battles don't really mean much." That of course constituted
total repudiation of the Westmoreland way of war.
Ambassador Colby said of Abrams: "I was enormously
impressed by his grasp of the political significance of the pacification
program. Finally we had focused on the real war." Early in his command
(which began near the end of June 1968) Abrams cabled General Earle Wheeler,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to report that in pacification "we
are making our major effort; so is the enemy. In my judgment, what is required
now is all out with all we have. The military machine runs best at full throttle.
That's about where we have it and where I intend to keep it."
While all this was going on U.S. forces, which as noted
above had progressively and massively increased during the Westmoreland years,
were now incrementally and unilaterally withdrawn. That meant that the
successes being achieved were, more and more, achieved by the South Vietnamese.
All that had been accomplished was scuttled when, in the
aftermath of the 1973 Paris Accords, the United States Congress decided it no
longer wished to support our ill-fated South Vietnamese allies, even though by
that point the only help being provided was financial. Since neither North
Vietnam nor South Vietnam was self-sufficient militarily, that decision was
fatal for the South. Cabled Tom Polgar, the last CIA Chief of Staff Saigon, in
one of his final messages: "Ultimate outcome hardly in doubt, because
South Vietnam cannot survive without U.S. military aid as long as North
Vietnam's war-making capacity is unimpaired and supported by Soviet Union and China."
Q: A Better War became very influential at the Pentagon during the
Bush and Obama administrations, as the military faced wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. What lessons were drawn from Vietnam as the United States dealt
with more recent conflicts?
A: While I of course was not a party to those discussions, I
gather from press accounts and conversations with some participants that the
principal insights involved the importance of General Abrams's emphasis on
clear and hold (rather than search and destroy) tactics, on upgrading
indigenous forces, and on providing security for the populace.
Q: Are you working on another book now?
A: I'm currently drafting some selective memoirs—just for my
family, of course, not for publication. Over the years my children have
encouraged me to do this, but until now I always responded (with complete
accuracy) that I was busy telling the stories of far more important people.
With publication of the Westmoreland biography I came to a point where I felt I
could spare some time for the more personal task, although I was unsure of how
it would go.
The first afternoon I sat down to give it a try, I wrote about the
dog my father gave me when I was eight and he was about to leave for World War
II. That turned out to be a very nice dog, and I found there were quite a
number of things I enjoyed recording about her and our shared adventures. The
next day I wrote about my sixth grade teacher, one of the greatest friends I
ever had, and that seemed to go well, too. So since then I have been adding
anecdotes and reminiscences as they float up in my memory. I can recommend this
to everyone. It is especially gratifying to remember all those to whom we have
owed so much over the years—dogs of course, but also family members, teachers,
friends, and writers and composers and artists and film makers and on and on.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: There are, despite an absolute flood of books about
Vietnam and related matters, still some books we need. I am very slow, taking
three or four or even five years to produce a book, so I may not have enough
time remaining to undertake these projects. One that should be written, though,
might be entitled Also Great: The Generation That Fought the Vietnam War. That
references, of course, Tom Brokaw's widely known book The Greatest
Generation in which he so characterized those who fought World War II.
Many people do not know that two-thirds of the World War II cohort were drafted
and only one-third volunteered, whereas during the Vietnam War the statistics are
just the opposite, with two-thirds of those who served volunteering and only
one-third drafted. That in itself seems to me to warrant paying some
attention. I would never disparage the World War II veterans, among whom
are my father and my uncle, but I do think Vietnam veterans also deserve an
account that specifically recognizes their patriotism, valor, and service.
One other necessary book could be entitled Living the Dream:
The Vietnamese in America. After we abandoned the South Vietnamese and they were
conquered by the North, many fled their own country to find freedom and new
opportunities elsewhere. As we now know, many perished in the attempt, lost at
sea or dead of starvation or sickness or even the victims of piracy. Many more,
though, made their way to Australia, to Canada, to France, and in lesser
numbers to other nations of the world. Fortunately for us, one of the largest
concentrations of expatriate Vietnamese is in America, where they have
demonstrated strong family values, a thirst for education, and capacity for
hard work.
In closing A Better War I wrote this: Nearly a
quarter-century after the war Nick Sebastian, a West Point graduate then with
the Immigration and Naturalization Service, spent three months in what had once
been Saigon interviewing candidates for political asylum in the United States,
former "boat people" who had been forcibly returned from refugee
camps elsewhere in Southeast Asia. It was for Sebastian a moving and humbling
experience, for he found both the country of Vietnam and its people beautiful,
persevering with admirable spirit under a repressive regime and terrible
economic hardship. "The people I met throughout the country," he
reported, "accept their loss and in many cases unbelievable subsequent
persecution with an equanimity, fortitude, strength of character, and will to
survive that is awe-inspiring."
I hope someone will one day tell their story.
