The Best and the Brightest (108 page)

In February 1965, as the bombing started, Westmoreland was ready and eager to get on with the job of getting troops in, a job he had, like any top general, readied himself for and a job which turned him from an adviser to a commander, a change which he naturally welcomed and which would change the balance once and for all in Washington, where the government was still more divided than it seemed, and where the sending of combat troops was still an idea so chilling that it was deemed the best way to handle it was never to mention it. A
commander.
A commander changed the balance automatically, a commander who said he needed this many men, had to have them, could not vouch for the safety of the men under his command otherwise, who said he could not do the job otherwise. An ambassador you could argue with, a member of the Joint Chiefs you could argue with and turn down. An Undersecretary of State was important, but if rejected, there was no political damage. But a commander was something else, he was your man in combat who was responsible for your boys, and if turned down, it might be politically explosive (Westmoreland never received command for the entire theater, in part because of the military’s own bureaucracy, in part because Lyndon Johnson had not forgotten about Douglas MacArthur, aware of a commander who becomes too big, too famous, who challenges his Commander in Chief). So a commander changed the balance; and if a President wanted to make sure that he did not have to send troops, then he had to be very careful in his choice of commander and in his instructions to that commander.

The balance changed first in Saigon, where two distinguished generals, old friends, had worked side by side in 1964, even though one of them, Max Taylor, was in civilian clothes. But civilian clothes or no, there was never any doubt in 1964 who was the senior U.S. official in Saigon; it was Max Taylor, with no visible stars, friend and confidant of two Presidents, former Chairman of the JCS. And though Taylor was extremely sensitive about not dominating Westmoreland, careful to consult him on all decisions, it was Taylor who controlled the mission, and most important of all, controlled its estimates. And though in 1961 he had rather cavalierly suggested the sending of combat troops, with their mission singularly poorly defined (on the apparent assumption that once there, they would simply stand as a symbol and not have to fight anyone), he had, in the year he spent in Vietnam as ambassador, become increasingly nervous about the role of combat troops, knowing this time that if they arrived they would have to fight, and that this would be a cycle hard to stop. Now, even as he was endorsing the bombing, he was trying to stop the troops, and despite an old and abiding friendship he was by February 1965 in considerable conflict with Westmoreland.

It was symbolic that Taylor, who had been the top civilian and who saw himself as controlling the U.S. decisions in Vietnam, would day by day in March and April lose control while Westmoreland, CINCPAC and the JCS began to make more and more decisions; the thrust and initiative went to them, and as Taylor declined in influence, Westmoreland rose. It was symbolic, for it told a larger story of how the civilians, all of whom were sworn to control events and to control the military, had lost control, except in effect to slow down and partially limit the military, and how the play had gone over to the military. For in those months, despite the efforts of Max Taylor, who, having been a major advocate of bombing, would surface as a major brake against ground forces, there would be a struggle over both the number of troops and the mission for them, and the latter, almost more important than the former, was gradually expanded in three phases, from security (the simple protection of air bases) to an enclave theory (which would put U.S. forces in coastal bases and allow them a certain limited initiative against the enemy), until finally the aggressive Westmoreland-Depuy strategy of “search and destroy” evolved in mid-1965. As far as Washington was concerned, it was something they slipped into more than they chose; they thought they were going to have time to make clear, well-planned choices, to decide how many men and what type of strategy they would follow, but events got ahead of them. The pressures from Saigon for more and more men would exceed Washington’s capacity to slow it down and think coolly, and so the decisions evolved rather than were made, and Washington slipped into a ground combat war.

But it was not something that the military in Saigon slipped into; the planning of troops, the need for them and how to use them was something that had long been in the contingency planning stage, and now, slowly, MACV was moving toward it, careful not to ask for too much too soon lest it scare the White House; in fact, CINCPAC was far more aggressive than Westmoreland in the early days; Westy was asking for small units and the JCS was asking for three divisions, a figure far larger than the commander dared ask for, fearing that it might blow the whole thing. In April the military arm of MACV was asked to do an estimate for Westmoreland on the enemy capacity for reinforcement; when the assignment was given, no one knew what the answer would be. But when Colonel William Crossen, one of the top intelligence officers, put it together he was appalled: the number of men that Hanoi could send down the trails without seriously damaging its defenses at home was quite astonishing. The North was very small but turned out to have a very large army. When Crossen came up with his final figure he could not believe it, so he checked it again, being even more conservative in the use of enemy figures, and still he was staggered by what he found; the other side had an amazing capacity and capability of reinforcing. When he brought the study to Westmoreland’s staff and showed the figure to a general there, he looked at it and said that it was impossible. Not impossible at all, answered Crossen, checked and double-checked. “Jesus,” said the general, “if we tell this to the people in Washington we’ll be out of the war tomorrow. We’ll have to revise it downward.” So Crossen’s figures were duly scaled down considerably, which was a good example of how the Army system worked, the staff intuitively protecting the commander from things he didn’t want to see and didn’t want to hear, never coming up with information which might challenge what a commander wanted to do at a given moment. Because the Westmoreland staff in February, March and April of 1965 knew that he wanted to get in the ball game with combat troops, it did everything carefully, never getting ahead of itself. The design was in private, if the truth were to be known, rather grand, but Lyndon Johnson was a great salami slicer, and no one was smarter than Westmoreland at knowing how much salami to order at a given time, how much he would be allowed to carry home.

It all unfolded as if on cue. Westmoreland had dispatched his deputy, General John L. Throckmorton, to Danang to survey new security requirements for the expanded air base. Not surprisingly, General Throckmorton found the Vietnamese unequal to the task (the very same generals a few months earlier, if questioned about the capacity of the Vietnamese to secure bases, would have replied that of course they could have handled it) and recommended that the entire Marine Expeditionary Brigade be sent to Danang. At first the military had intended to call them the Marine Expeditionary Force, but the civilians in the embassy, somewhat more sensitive to the nuances of the country, had suggested that since the French had been known as the French Expeditionary Forces, it might be wiser to call the American force the Marine
Amphibious
Force. Westmoreland, somewhat more cautiously, cut the request back to two battalion landing teams instead of three. Thus, if approved, it would mean 3,500 more Americans in Vietnam; there were already about 20,000 Americans in the country, but none in a combat battalion unit. They would be used for security, and that only.

It was at this point that Taylor voiced the first of a series of objections. On February 22 he cabled back to Rusk, his reservations beginning:

As I analyze the pros and cons of placing any considerable number of Marines in areas beyond those presently assigned I develop grave reservations as to wisdom and necessity of so doing. Such action would be step in reversing long-standing policy of avoiding commitment of ground combat forces in South Vietnam. Once this policy is breached, it will be very difficult to hold the line. If Da Nang needs better protection, so do Bien Hoa, Tan Son Nhut, Nha Trang . . .

Then, he noted, the sending of U.S. troops would almost surely see a decrease in responsibility on the part of the Vietnamese and encourage the instinct to let the Americans carry even more. It would not, he thought, release many ARVN troops for other duties. In addition, he was uneasy about the political problems of the war:

White-faced soldier, armed, equipped and trained as he is, not suitable guerrilla fighter for Asian forests and jungles. French tried to adapt their forces to this mission and failed; I doubt that U.S. forces could do much better . . . Finally there would be ever present question of how foreign soldier would distinguish between a VC and a friendly Vietnamese farmer. When I view this array of difficulties I am convinced that we should adhere to our past policy of keeping our ground forces out of direct counterinsurgency roles.

Having outlined all objections as strongly as he could, Taylor then deferred to the commander. Westmoreland was, after all, responsible for the base, and his concern, Taylor said, was “understandable.” With these warnings against the inherent dangers, Taylor agreed to the most limited use of a one-battalion landing team limited force. He was the first to see the concomitant problems; one reason that he did was that unlike the civilians, he understood how the military played the game; if you opened the door slightly, the crack would slowly and quietly but inevitably become wider; and he knew also the degree of planning that was going on in Saigon. Once Westmoreland went for troops, it would not be just Westmoreland, it would be CINCPAC and the JCS as well, and it would be very hard to hold the line. He was absolutely correct; at the same time that he was expressing doubts, CINCPAC was signing on enthusiastically to the idea of the Marines going to Danang, implying that Admiral Sharp would not be responsible for the damage if they were not sent, and showing good old-fashioned American ignorance of the complexity of the war, by belittling Taylor’s doubts about the capacity of the Marines to fight in a war like this (“the Marines have a distinguished record in counter-guerrilla warfare”). Under pressure like this, and being asked really for very little, Washington, with almost no debate, on February 26 approved two Marine battalion landing teams for Danang (there was a last-minute attempt by John McNaughton to send the 173rd Airborne from Okinawa to Danang, apparently because the sending of the 173rd would seem a less permanent commitment, and because the Marines had a history of being occupying forces in small banana republics and thus there was less stigma attached to the Airborne. For reasons of their own, largely logistical, the military quickly blocked McNaughton).

On March 8, 1965, the first of two Marine battalions started coming ashore at Danang, and though the Vietnamese government had asked that it be done as quietly and inconspicuously as possible, they had waded ashore in full combat dress and had been garlanded with flowers by young Vietnamese girls. They were to protect American facilities, secure the airfield, and as far as engaging the enemy was concerned, all public statements emphasized that they would not engage in day-to-day actions against the Vietcong. But the foot was now in the door, and in a subtle sense the balance of power within the U.S. mission in Saigon had begun to change. Westmoreland was now a new and more powerful figure than Taylor, he had taken the initiative; Taylor was on the defensive, from now on his cables and arguments would be attempts to limit the use of force. And at the same time Westmoreland would become the most important new player. The commander.

It was a role Westy was ready and prepared for, born to, eager for. His biographer, Ernest Furgurson, would title his book
Westmoreland: The Inevitable General.
Surely he looked like a general, the jaw jutted out, the features were forceful and handsome, there was no extra poundage; he played tennis in ferociously hot weather to sweat the weight off because he thought a general should look like a general, that troops commanded by a fat sloppy general would give fat sloppy performances. The face was strong and sharp, and finally clean, Westy was something clean. It was not surprising that as the war dragged on and became messier and messier, the Administration and the prowar media turned more and more to Westmoreland as a symbol of the U.S. presence, something clean in a very messy war. It was, in fact, hard to imagine him as anything else, and later it became something of a joke that Westy could never have been anything but a general. “Well, what about as a brand-new baby?” someone suggested. “No,” said another friend of his, “can’t you see it? The doctor arrives with a spanking new naked baby and he holds the baby out to the proud parents. 'Mr. and Mrs. Westmoreland, I’d like you to meet your son . . . General Westmoreland.’ ”

Everyone had always thought he would be a general; he had loved uniforms as a young boy, had looked good in them, had been an Eagle Scout, a reputation which had stayed with him during all his Army career, when he always seemed a little straighter, a little more clean-cut than the other officers. Even when he was a cadet, he and his roommates had sat around discussing when he should get married, if he should marry right after graduation or wait, serve for ten years, advance high in rank, and then get married. Wouldn’t too early a marriage slow him down on his way to being a general and Chief of Staff of the Army? They had in fact talked long and frequently of his career in those days and they had all decided that Westmoreland would be Chief of Staff of the Army, a job about which they knew nothing except that it was the top job, and thus Westy should have it. And so Westmoreland’s friend and classmate Chester V. Clifton, who later became military aide to Kennedy, would refer to Westmoreland in cadet days as Chief, making it a nickname. They did of course have to disguise it, because when people asked why they called him Chief it would be embarrassing to say that he was to be Chief of Staff, so Clifton, when questioned by superiors, said that it was because Westmoreland had some Indian blood.