General Westmoreland Dies
Top Vietnam General William Westmoreland Dies at age 91 - New York Times
Cue a thousand poorly-thought Vietnam-Iraq analogies from the Lefties tomorrow. “Anyone who compares Vietnam to Iraq obviously knows very little about either country.”
Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who commanded the United States forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, overseeing the vast troop buildup and the height of the fighting, died last night in a retirement home in Charleston, S.C. He was 91.
Westy, as he became known while a West Point cadet, was driving and combative - in World War II, leading a fast-moving artillery battalion; in Vietnam, directing “search and destroy” missions meant to decimate the enemy, and in retirement, suing CBS for a television documentary that he said had defamed him.
The libel suit, which he brought to trial in 1984 but dropped early in 1985, revived long-standing controversy about him. Over the years, he was widely criticized, inside and outside the armed forces, for his prime role in the conduct of the Vietnam War. One of his deputies in Vietnam, Gen. Bruce Palmer Jr., who rose to be vice chief of staff of the Army, later called the war “the first clear failure” in American military history.
But in his memoirs, General Westmoreland blamed the outcome on the South Vietnamese Army and on President Johnson’s refusal to broaden the war into Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam. The general contended that in Vietnam the American forces’ record of “achievements was remarkable: the mammoth logistical buildup, various tactical expedients and innovations, the advisory effort, civic action programs.”
“But perhaps most impressive of all,” he wrote, was “the accomplishment for the first time in military history of a true air mobility on the battlefield.”
Over the years, other highly placed officers and officials praised the logistical effort but argued that, under General Westmoreland’s command, war-of-attrition tactics failed, and that emphasis on military operations carried out by American forces damaged the South Vietnamese Army psychologically.
Robert Scott Dies
Chief Justice Rehnquist Dies
Barking at Heaven’s Door
‘arbitrary date’ bad. ‘general time horizon’ good.
The daily diss from Mark Penn