General William C. Westmoreland

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Thanks for sharing SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL, and thanks for the mention SGT Michael Thorin. As the "Father of Intelligence Analysis", one need only scratch the service of Sherman Kent's STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE FOR AMERICAN WORLD POLICY to learn the difference between 'National Security' and 'National Prosperity'. It can be argued that for most Baby Boomers, who lean politically left or right, these concepts are closely tied to their geopolitical outlooks on drug and human trafficking from Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle, the Gulf of Tonkin false flag, low-intensity conflicts and communist insurgencies, presidential assassinations, civil rights and Watergate, which stem from Westmoreland leadership in what has been describes by author John Prados as the 'Unwinnable War'.

In General Westmoreland's own words, "Our objective in South Vietnam was to keep the North Vietnamese from taking over Vietnam by force." Also amplified in his memoirs, “The enemy had committed big units and I ignored them at my peril”. Consequently, [Defense Secretary] "McNamara, tended to make decisions based on numbers, not on other factors that should have been considered. It’s no secret I didn’t care much for the man,” General Westmoreland candidly admitted. “We’re killing these [black, brown and yellow asian] people at a ratio of 10 to 1,” he once told South Carolina Senator Hollings. “Westy," the senator saged, "The American people don’t care about the ten. They care about the one.” Westmoreland didn’t get it," Council on Foreign Relations contributor Thomas E. Ricks reported in Foreign Policy.

In his non-fiction monograph, THE CIA AS ORGANIZED CRIME, author Douglas Valentine examined the Vietnam War from an organizational perspective via interviews with CIA Director William Colby and CIA operators and advisors. Under Director Colby, the Phoenix Program seems to have exercised 'Coordinating Authority' in their pacification strategy. "By 1966, Lyndon Johnson had realized that the U.S. military alone could not end the war in Vietnam. Johnson and CIA Advisor Robert Komer told [Westmoreland] that the only way the war could be won was to: 1) pacify the civilian population, and 2) to destroy the secret government that supported the Viet Cong insurgency... It wasn't enough simply to fight the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong guerrillas; you had to pacify the entire civilian society in South Vietnam... And you had to do this by killing off and capturing this underground secret government...." If this strategy rings familiar it's because Valentine sees the CIA's Phoenix Program as the blueprint for our post-9/11 War on Terror, and USAF antiterrorism and Force Protection (AT/FP) strategy implemented throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.

In hindsight, "[General Westmoreland] regretted the sudden realization that some of his former troops thought of him as a distant, starched-greens, photo-op general striding up the ramp of a C-130—a general who didn’t know his troops were having to forcibly take their jungle boots away from the Vietnamese black-marketeers [economics]. “I wish I had known about that,” he sighed. “Things would have been different.”

Provisions contained in the Geneva Accords of 20 July 1954 would have unforeseen and lasting effects on the organizational development and command and control (C2) arrangements of the U.S. military assistance and development of the U.S. Military Advisory Assistance Group (MAAG). Unlike preexisting C2 structures in Europe which General Eisenhower modified during War II—giving rise to the National Security Act of 1947—the C2 arrangements of U.S. and South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) allies in Vietnam evolved on the fly from a small military assistance mission into directing a U.S.force of over 500,000 in 1950. The MAAG philosophy of assistance rather than command significantly influenced organizational development. IMHO, what U.S. Marine General Charles Krulak clearly envisioned and coined as the 'Strategic Corporeal' and the 'Three Block War' for Iraq and Afghanistan are no less than key C2 lessons learned from the Vietnam War's mashup of SEATO, CIA, MAAG and the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) C2 challenges that Westmoreland dedramatized on his own terms.

List of References:
Andrade, D. (2009, Mar.22). Gen. William C. Westmoreland Was Right. Retrieved from http://www.historynet.com/gen-william-c-westmoreland-was-right.htm

Bendix, H. (2017, Sep. 17). Secret CIA Assassination Program: Operation Phoenix, Vietnam War Counterinsurgency. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-dap0qnO0o

Cia.gov. (n.d.). Intelligence in Public Literature: Takes on Intelligence and the Vietnam War. Reviewed by Clayton Laurie. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol.-55-no.-2/takes-on-intelligence-and-the-vietnam-war.html

Dawson, R. (2017, Jan. 28). Doug Valentine on the CIA as organized crime and drug runners. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnVcappJneo&app=desktop

Department of the Air Force. (2014, Nov. 7). Annex 3-30 Command and Control: Coordinating Authority. Retrieved from https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Portals/61/documents/Annex_3-30/3-30-D66-C2-Coordinating-Authority.pdf

Department of the Army. (2004). Center of Military History Publication 90-8-1. Vietnam Studies. Command and Control 1950 - 1969. By General George S. Eckhardt. Retrieved from https://history.army.mil/html/books/090/90-8-1/CMH_Pub_90-8-1.pdf

Department of the Army. (2006). Center of Military History Publication 91-6-1-1. Center of Military History Publication (CMH Pub) 91–6–1. The United States Army in Vietnam: MACV The Joint Command Years of Escalation 1962-1967. Retrieved from https://history.army.mil/html/books/091/91-6/CMH_Pub_91-6.pdf

Goldberg, J. (2018, Aug. 3). The Golden Triangle. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/the-golden-triangle-1434569

Jenson, R. (2004, Aug. 9). Air Force members serve in Iraq alongside soldiers, Marines. Retrieved from https://www.stripes.com/news/air-force-members-serve-in-iraq-alongside-soldiers-marines-1.22606

Kent, S. (1949). The Content of Intelligence: A Digest from Strategic Intelligence. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79t01762a [login to see] 10-2

Lee, F. (1971, Jun. 1). The ‘Pentagon Papers’ by Daniel Ellsberg was a CIA Psyop to Divert Attention from the Phoenix Program and Probes into Their Drug Smuggling. Retrieved from http://truthmegasite.com/the-pentagon-papers-by-daniel-ellsberg-was-a-cia-psyop-to-divert-attention-from-the-phoenix-program-and-probes-into-their-drug-smuggling/

Newcomb, C. (2009, Feb. 14). Westy’s Regrets – Last Interview with Gen. William Westmoreland. Retrieved from http://www.historynet.com/westys-regrets-last-interview-with-gen-william-westmoreland.htm

Ricks, T. (2011, Oct. 11). Today's List: The Top 10 Reasons Gen.Westmoreland lost the War in Vietnam. Retrieved fromhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/todays-list-the-top-ten-reasons-gen-westmoreland-lost-the-war-in-vietnam/

Safesideassociation.org. (n.d.). U.S. Air Force Safeside Association. Retrieved October 15, 2018, from https://www.safesideassociation.org/main/history

Sincair50. (2012, May 18). Dien Bien Phu Documentary. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFMcvHQIpHY&app=desktop

Turner, H. (2016, Jan.29). The CIA’s “Phoenix Program” in Vietnam and the “War on Terror.”
Retrieved from https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-phoenix-program/5506322

Wavellroom.com. (2017, Apr. 23). Mission Command; The Fall of the Strategic Corporal & Rise of the Tactical Minister. Retrieved from https://wavellroom.com/2017/04/23/mission-command-the-fall-of-the-strategic-corporal-rise-of-the-tactical-minister/

Woodrow Wilson Center. (2013, Nov. 13). Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6eVgI1hVck

Great piece of history. I learned a great deal more about GEN Westmoreland in that 10 minutes than I have in any single sitting.

Thank you for the share SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL.

COL Mikel J. Burroughs,SPC Douglas Bolton,Brig Gen Jim Jaeger,CPT Jack Durish,Maj Marty Hogan,SPC Christopher Smith,Lt Col Charlie Brown,Cpl Scott McCarroll,SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth,SP5 Mark Kuzinski,PVT Mark Brown,SGT Elizabeth Scheck,PFC Jacob Wrubel,MSgt Ken "Airsoldier" Collins-Hardy,SSG William Jones,TSgt Joe C.,SSgt Robert Marx,SGT Robert George,

Thank you my friend SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL for honoring General William Childs Westmoreland who was a 1936 graduate from USMA, West Point - my alma mater. He was USMA graduate number 10,571. He was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the Field Artillery. He served in combat in WWII [Bronze Star Medal] he branched transferred into the infantry after WWII and served as he commanded the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team in the Korean War [Bronze Star Medal] in three campaigns.

Background from vietnamgear.com/bio/1.aspx
"William Westmoreland
Full Name William Childs Westmoreland
Nickname Westy
Date of Birth 26 March 1914
Place of Birth Saxon, Spartanburg County, South Carolina
Died 18 July 2005
The highest profile American general of the Vietnam War, William Westmoreland oversaw the U.S. troop build up and was a key architect of the military strategy. After successfully turning the tide against the North Vietnamese during 1965 he was named Time Man of the Year, but as the conflict dragged on it became increasingly unpopular. For some Westmoreland was irrevocably tainted by the war, so much so that in 1985 he told the Associated Press "I have no apologies, no regrets. I gave my very best efforts. I’ve been hung in effigy. I’ve been spat upon. You just have to let those things bounce off."

Westmoreland graduated from West Point in 1936, receiving the Pershing Sword for military proficiency, and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Field Artillery. He joined the 9th Infantry Division in 1941 and saw action during WWII in North Africa and Sicily as Battalion commander of the unit’s 34th Field Artillery. After further exploits in France and Germany, Westmoreland returned to the U.S. to complete his airborne training at Fort Benning before serving as the 82nd Airborne Division’s Chief of Staff from 1947 to 1950.

Korean War
In 1952 he lead the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team in three campaigns across the Korean peninsula and was decorated for his effective leadership. After spending three years as Secretary of the Army General Staff he was made Superintendent of West Point in 1960. Three years later he was promoted to Lieutenant General and assumed command of the XVIII Airborne Corps, controlling the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions.

Vietnam War
In January 1964 Westmoreland was named Deputy Commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). Six months later, following the departure of General Harkins, he became Acting Commander and on 1st August 1964 he was promoted to General and Commander of MACV.

Following a series of heavy ARVN defeats in May and June 1965, Westmoreland believed the Viet Cong were moving into the third and final phase of the insurgency - the fielding of large conventional style units. Consequently, rather pursuing a counterinsurgency approach based on population security he designed a strategy of attrition, the objective of which was to reach the cross over point, when the enemy’s loses would exceed his ability to replace them through either infiltration from the north or recruitment in the south. To this end, the U.S. military would use its high-tech mobility and superior firepower to search for and destroy the Communist's main force units, whilst the RVNAF would focus on protecting the population from guerrilla attacks.1

These tactics produced an impressive victory in the Ia Drang valley in November 1965, however the enemy quickly learned to avoid such large battles. Instead, North Vietnamese and VC main force units would draw U.S. forces into remote areas to allow the insurgents continued access to the densely populated coastal plains.

Despite the difficulty in locating and forcing the Communist's main units to battle and the RVNAF's failure to protect the population, Westmoreland maintained that the enemy body count sufficiently validated his attrition strategy.2 However, in March 1968, in the wake of the Communist’s Tet Offensive and his subsequent request for an additional 206,000 personnel, he was replaced as MACV Commander by Creighton Abrams.

Promoted to Chief of Staff of the Army, he supervised its transition to an all-volunteer force and its disengagement from the war as part of President Nixon’s Vietnamization program.

Post Vietnam
After retiring from active service in July 1972 Westmoreland unsuccessfully ran for Governor of South Carolina before publishing his autobiography, A Soldier Reports, in 1976. In 1982 he fought a libel action against CBS for a documentary they aired claiming that he had deliberately misled the Pentagon and the public about the true strength of the Communist forces in South Vietnam. However, he withdrew from the case after the television network stated that it did not mean to impugn his honor.
General Westmoreland was buried at West Point Cemetery on 23rd July 2005."
Thanks for mentioning me MSgt Ken "Airsoldier" Collins-Hardy

General Westmoreland's Vietnam Report - Press Conference & Briefing (1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpP2LdGgOKQ

FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Orlando Illi Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price CPT Jack Durish Capt Tom Brown CMSgt (Join to see) MSG Andrew White SFC William Farrell SGT (Join to see) Sgt Albert Castro SSG David Andrews Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Charles H. Hawes SGT Mark Halmrast PO1 William "Chip" Nagel LTC Greg Henning