William Laws Calley^[1] (William Laws Calley, Jr.) (born June 8, 1943) is a convicted American war criminal and a former U.S. Army officer found guilty of murder for his role in the My Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War.^[2]

Early life[link]

William Calley was born in Miami, Florida. His father was a United States Navy veteran of World War II. Calley graduated from Miami Edison High School in Miami and then attended Palm Beach Junior College in 1963. He dropped out in 1964 after receiving unsatisfactory grades, consisting of two Cs, one D, and four Fs.^[3] Calley then worked at a variety of jobs, including as a bellhop, dishwasher, salesman, insurance appraiser and train conductor.^[4] While living in San Francisco in 1966, Calley received a letter from the Selective Service board requesting reevaluation of his medical condition. While attempting to return to Miami, his car broke down in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Calley then reported to a recruiting official, enlisting in the U.S. Army on July 26, 1966.^[4]

Military career[link]

Calley underwent nine weeks of basic combat training at Fort Bliss, Texas,^[5] followed by eight weeks advanced individual training as a company clerk at Fort Lewis, Washington. Having scored high enough on his Armed Forces Qualification tests, he applied for and was subsequently accepted into Officer's Candidate School (OCS). He then began 24 weeks of junior officer training at Fort Benning in mid-March 1967. Upon graduating from OCS Class No. 51 on September 7, 1967,^[4] he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Infantry. Following his commission, Calley was assigned to Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Infantry Brigade,^[1] and began training at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, in preparation for deployment to Vietnam.

Calley's evaluations described him as merely "average" as an officer.^[3] Later, as the My Lai investigation progressed, a more negative picture emerged. Men in his platoon reported to army investigators that Calley lacked common sense and could not read a map or compass properly.^[6] A number of men assigned under Calley claimed that because he was so disliked some secretly discussed assassinating him.^[2]

Murder trial[link]

Photo taken by United States Army photographer Ronald L. Haeberle on March 16, 1968 in the aftermath of the My Lai massacre showing mostly women and children dead on a road.

The events in My Lai had initially been covered up by local divisional command. In April 1969, nearly thirteen months after the massacre, Ron Ridenhour, a G.I. who had been with the 11th Brigade wrote letters to the President, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense. In these letters the G.I. described some of the atrocities by the soldiers at My Lai, that he had been told about.

Calley was charged on September 5, 1969, with six specifications of premeditated murder for the deaths of 104 Vietnamese civilians near the village of My Lai, at a hamlet called Son My, more commonly called My Lai in the U.S. press. As many as 500 villagers, mostly women, children, infants and the elderly, had been systematically killed by American soldiers during a bloody rampage on March 16, 1968. Upon conviction, Calley could have faced the death penalty.

On November 12, 1969, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh broke the story^[7] and revealed that Calley was charged with murdering 109 Vietnamese.^[8]

Calley's trial started on November 17, 1970. It was the military prosecution's contention that Calley, in defiance of the rules of engagement, ordered his men to deliberately murder unarmed Vietnamese civilians despite the fact that his men were not under enemy fire at all. Testimony revealed that Calley had ordered the men of 1st Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry of the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal) to kill everyone in the village. In presenting the case, the two military prosecutors, Aubrey Daniel and John Partin, were hamstrung by the reluctance of many soldiers to testify against Calley. Some refused to answer questions point-blank on the witness stand by citing the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. However one holdout, a soldier in Calley's unit named Paul Meadlo, after being jailed for contempt of court by the presiding judge, Reid W. Kennedy, reluctantly agreed to testify. In his testimony, Meadlo described that during the day's events, he was standing guard over a few dozen My Lai villagers when Lt. Calley approached him and ordered him to shoot all the civilians. When Meadlo balked at the orders, Calley backed off 20 feet (6 m) or more and opened fire on the people himself, and Meadlo joined in.

Another witness named Dennis Conti, who was also reluctant to testify, described the carnage, claiming that Calley had started it and the rest of the 105 soldiers of Charlie Company followed suit. Another witness, named Leonard Gonzalez, told of seeing one of the soldiers of Calley's unit herd some men and women villagers together and order them to strip off their clothing. When the villagers refused, the enraged soldier fired a single round from his M-79 grenade launcher into the crowd, killing everyone.

Calley's original defense that the death of the villagers was the result of an accidental helicopter or aerial airstrike was quashed by the few prosecution witnesses. In his new defense, Calley claimed he was following the orders of his immediate superior, Captain Ernest Medina. Whether this order was actually given is disputed; Medina was acquitted of all charges relating to the incident at a separate trial in August 1971. Taking the witness stand, Calley, under the direct examination by his civilian defense lawyer George Latimer, claimed that on the previous day, his commanding officer, Captain Medina, made it clear that his unit was to move into the village and that everyone was to be shot for they all were Viet Cong. Twenty-one other members of Charlie Company also testified on Calley's defense corroborating the orders. But Medina publicly denied that he had ever given such orders and he had meant enemy soldiers, while Calley assumed that his order to "kill the enemy" meant to kill everyone. In his personal statement, Calley stated that:

"I was ordered to go in there and destroy the enemy. That was my job that day. That was the mission I was given. I did not sit down and think in terms of men, women and children. They were all classified as the same, and that's the classification that we dealt with over there, just as the enemy. I felt then and I still do that I acted as I was directed, and I carried out the order that I was given and I do not feel wrong in doing so."

After deliberating for 79 hours, the six-officer jury (five of whom had served in Vietnam) convicted him on March 29, 1971, of the premeditated murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians. On March 31, 1971, Calley was sentenced to life imprisonment and hard labor at Fort Leavenworth,^[9] which includes the United States Disciplinary Barracks, the Department of Defense's only maximum security prison.

Of the 26 officers and soldiers initially charged for their part in the My Lai Massacre or the subsequent cover-up, only Calley was convicted. Many saw My Lai as a direct result of the military's attrition strategy with its emphasis on "body counts" and "kill ratios."

Many in America were outraged by Calley's sentence; Georgia's governor Jimmy Carter instituted "American Fighting Man's Day" and asked Georgians to drive for a week with their lights on.^[10] Indiana's governor asked all state flags to be flown at half-staff for Calley, and Utah's and Mississippi's governors also disagreed with the verdict.^[10] The Arkansas, Kansas, Texas, New Jersey, and South Carolina legislatures requested clemency for Calley.^[10] Alabama's governor George Wallace visited Calley in the stockade and requested that Nixon pardon him.

After the conviction, the White House received over 5000 telegrams; the ratio was 100 to 1 in favor of leniency.^[11] In a telephone survey of the American public, 79% disagreed with the verdict, 81% believed that the life sentence Calley had received was too stern, and 69% believed Calley had been made a scapegoat.^[11]

Many others were outraged not at Calley's guilty verdict, but that he was the only one within the chain of command who was convicted. At the Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War January 31-February 2, 1971, veterans including First Lieutenant William Crandell of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division expressed their outrage:^[12]

We intend to tell who it was that gave us those orders; that created that policy; that set that standard of war bordering on full and final genocide. We intend to demonstrate that My Lai was no unusual occurrence, other than, perhaps, the number of victims killed all in one place, all at one time, all by one platoon of us. We intend to show that the policies of Americal Division which inevitably resulted in My Lai were the policies of other Army and Marine Divisions as well. We intend to show that war crimes in Vietnam did not start in March 1968, or in the village of Son My or with one Lieutenant William Calley. We intend to indict those really responsible for My Lai, for Vietnam, for attempted genocide.

There is a view in defense of Calley, South Korean Vietnam Expeditionary Forces Commanding Officer Chae Myung Shin remarks "Calley tried to get revenge for the deaths of his troops. In a war, this is natural."^[13]

House arrest[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2009)

On April 1, 1971, only a day after Calley was sentenced, U.S. President Richard Nixon ordered him transferred from Leavenworth prison to house arrest at Fort Benning, pending appeal. This leniency was protested by Melvin Laird, the Secretary of Defense. The prosecutor, Aubrey Daniel wrote, "The greatest tragedy of all will be if political expedience dictates the compromise of such a fundamental moral principle as the inherent unlawfulness of the murder of innocent persons."^[14] On August 20, 1971, the convening authority — the Commanding General of Fort Benning — reduced Calley's sentence to 20 years. The Army Court of Military Review affirmed both the conviction and sentence (46 C.M.R. 1131 (1973)). The Secretary of the Army reviewed the sentence and findings and approved both, but in a separate clemency action commuted confinement to ten years. On May 3, 1974, President Nixon notified the Secretary that he had reviewed the case and determined he would take no further action in the matter.

Ultimately, Calley served only three and a half years of house arrest in his quarters at Fort Benning. He petitioned the federal district court for habeas corpus on February 11, 1974, which was granted on September 25, 1974, along with his immediate release, by federal judge J. Robert Elliott. Judge Elliott found that Calley's trial had been prejudiced by pretrial publicity, denial of subpoenas of certain defense witnesses, refusal of the United States House of Representatives to release testimony taken in executive session of its My Lai investigation, and inadequate notice of the charges. (The judge had released Calley on bail on February 27, 1974, but an appeals court reversed it and returned Calley to U.S. Army custody on June 13, 1974.) Later in 1974, President Nixon tacitly issued Calley a limited Presidential Pardon. Consequently, his general court-martial conviction and dismissal from the U.S. Army were upheld, however, the prison sentence and subsequent parole obligations were commuted to time served, leaving Calley a free man.

At his release, the press eagerly awaited his arrival at the prison's South Gate, as promised by the prison commandant. Instead, at Calley's request, he was released at West Gate and taken directly to the Fort Leavenworth airfield, where his escort had him flown home. The press were notified of his departure after the fact.

The army appealed against Judge Elliott's decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and asked an appeals judge to stay Calley's immediate release, which was granted. However, the full Court upheld the release pending appeal and decided the entire court would hear the appeal (normally not done in the first instance). The Army won a reversal of Judge Elliott's habeas corpus grant and a reinstatement of the judgement of the courts martial, with 5 judges dissenting. (Calley v. Callaway, 519 F.2d 184, 9/10/1975). In a long and extremely detailed careful opinion, the reviewing court disagreed with Judge Elliott on the law and significantly on Elliott's scope of review of the courts martial proceedings. On November 9, 1974, the Court noted that although by now Calley had been "paroled" from confinement by the Army, that did not moot the habeas corpus proceedings.

After release[link]

Sometime in 2005 or 2006, Calley divorced his wife Penny, whose father had employed him at the V.V. Vick jewelry store in Columbus since 1975, and moved to downtown Atlanta to live with his son, William Laws Calley III.^[15] In October 2007, Calley agreed to be interviewed by the UK newspaper the Daily Mail to discuss the massacre, saying, "Meet me in the lobby of the nearest bank at opening time tomorrow, and give me a certified check for $25,000, then I'll talk to you for precisely one hour."^[16] When the journalist arrived to question Calley without a check, Calley left.

On August 19, 2009, while speaking to the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus, Calley apologized for his role in the My Lai massacre. Calley said:

There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai. I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry....If you are asking why I did not stand up to them when I was given the orders, I will have to say that I was a 2nd Lieutenant getting orders from my commander and I followed them—foolishly, I guess.^[17][18]

See also[link]

United States Army portal

• Glenn Andreotta, Lawrence Colburn and Hugh Thompson, Jr. - U.S. helicopter crew members who intervened to stop the My Lai killings
• Seymour Hersh - Investigative journalist who broke the story of the massacre and coverup
• Major General Samuel Koster - Commanding officer of the Americal Division
• Captain Ernest Medina - Commanding officer of Charlie Company
• Terry Nelson - One-hit wonder who released "The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley", a song about Calley in 1971

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: William Calley

• Hugh Thompson Foundation web site: (501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Lawrence Colburn in honor of Hugh Thompson: http://www.hughthompson.org
• TRIAL : William Calley's trial
• Famous American Trials: The My Lai Courts-Martial 1970
• Beidler, Philip D., "Calley's Ghost", Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 2003.
• BBC.co.uk | 29 | 1971: Calley guilty of My Lai Massacre
• Songs about My Lai and Lt. William Calley
• "Found: The monster of the My Lai massacre". Daily Mail (London). October 6, 2007. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-485983/Found-The-monster-My-Lai-massacre.html.  (with photo from 2007)

Terry A. Nelson is a consultant and Republican strategist in the United States. He was the political director of the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign. In early 2006, Nelson was hired as a "senior adviser" to Senator John McCain; in December 2006 McCain's presidential exploratory committee said that Nelson was McCain's pick to be his national campaign manager, should McCain choose to turn his exploring into a full-blown run for the White House.

Personal[link]

Nelson is a native of Marshalltown, Iowa.^[1] He graduated in 1994 from the University of Iowa with a B.S. in Political Science.

Nelson, his wife Marci, and their three children live in Falls Church, Virginia.^[2]

Politics and political campaigns[link]

State and regional[link]

Nelson managed the 1992 campaign of U.S. Representative Jim Nussle, two years before graduating from college,^[3] and Nussle's 1994 campaign. From 1995 to 1996 he was a field representative for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). In 1997, he became the majority staff director of the Republican caucus in the Iowa state senate.

National positions at NRCC[link]

In 2000, Nelson became the political director of the NRCC.^[1][4]

From January 2002 ^[5] to July 2003, Nelson was deputy chief of staff of the Republican National Committee (RNC). In that position, he has been mentioned in two criminal cases:

• Nelson was the superior of James Tobin, the New England political director for the RNC, who was convicted in late 2005 for his role in a scheme to jam phone lines in New Hampshire in November 2002 to block Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts. Nelson was on the government's witness list to testify at Tobin's trial,^[6] but he was never called to testify at the trial.^[7]

• As of 2006, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and two others face criminal charges of violating a Texas law that prohibits the use of corporate money to fund candidates. The indictment charges they wrote a check to the RNC from a PAC controlled by DeLay and had the RNC send the same amount of money to the candidates, in order to get around that law. According to the indictment, the request and proposal to do this was made to Nelson in September 2002, and the check and list of candidates to be funded was given to Nelson two days later.^[8]

Presidential campaigns[link]

In July 2003, Nelson became the political director of the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential campaign, a position he held for the next year and a half.

In early 2006, Nelson was hired as a "senior adviser" to John McCain's Straight Talk America political action committee.^[1] In late 2005, Nelson had told the National Journal that he wouldn't make a decision about which Republican campaign to join until 2007 at the earliest, saying "I'm currently enjoying my private life and don't have immediate plans to change that." ^[9]

In December 2006, McCain's presidential exploratory committee said that Nelson was McCain's pick to be his national campaign manager, should McCain choose to turn his exploring into a full-blown run for the White House.^[10]

On July 10, 2007, Nelson resigned as national campaign manager for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign. [1] The sudden departure of both Nelson and longtime McCain adviser John Weaver came after months of increasing campaign problems. McCain, after first insisting that neither man had been fired, called their departure "a consensus decision." ^[11]

Consulting[link]

Dawson McCarthy Nelson Media[link]

In 2001, Nelson co-founded the Republican media shop Dawson McCarthy Nelson Media (DMNM), a communication and advertising firm that develops strategy, messages, and advertising for Republican candidates.^[12] One of the firm's clients was Americans for Job Security (AJS), a Virginia-based group that the American Insurance Association helped launch. AJS takes out attack ads against liberal and moderate candidates nationwide without disclosing its political contributions or expenditures.^[3]

Crosslink Strategy Group and Mercury Public Affairs[link]

In 2005, Nelson and his partners at DMNM started another firm, Crosslink Strategy Group, to create grassroots campaigns for corporations and interest groups. The firm’s website says it can teach clients how to "increase your PAC fundraising" and ensure "compliance with campaign finance laws." One of the employees of the firm is Chris LaCivita, who helped design Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's anti-Kerry ads.^[3]

Working Families for Wal-Mart, a group with significant funding from Wal-Mart, has employed the Crosslink firm. In April 2006, temporary workers hired by Crosslink were signing up shoppers to become members of the "Working Families" group, a campaign intended to eventually go nationwide.^[13]

In May 2006, Crosslinks Strategy Group became an operating unit of Mercury Public Affairs, with Nelson becoming a partner^[14] and running the firm's Washington, D.C. office.^[15] The firm describes itself as "a full-service strategic communications firm" whose political division "has been involved in successful political campaigns in over thirty states". It is part of the Omnicom Group, a global advertising, marketing and corporate communications company.^[16]

In October 2006, Wal-Mart publicly ended its contract with Crosslink Strategy, after significant controversy erupted regarding Nelson's involvement with an allegedly racist campaign ad mocking Democrat Harold Ford of Tennessee.^[17]

Akerman Senterfitt[link]

In March 2005, the Florida law firm Akerman Senterfitt announced that Nelson had been hired "as a consultant in the firm’s emerging Government Relations Practice".^[18] As of September 2006, the firm's website (www.akerman.com) no longer listed him as a member of the firm.^[19]

2006 Tennessee Senate election[link]

In September 2006, the Washington Post reported that the Republican National Committee had hired Nelson to run an ad campaign to attack Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate seats in the November general election, featuring negative information that researchers had or would dig up on Democrats.^[20]

In October 2006, Nelson was revealed as the second producer, with lead producer Scott Howell, of the attack ad used against Democratic candidate Harold Ford Jr. in which a white woman said that she had met Ford at a Playboy party. The ad concluded with the woman speaking to the camera and saying with a wink, "Harold, call me." It was criticized as racist by the NAACP and others.^[21]

Coverage of the controversy characterized Nelson's partner Howell as a "protegé" of Karl Rove. After Jesse Jackson and others called on Walmart to fire Nelson, Walmart asked for and received Nelson's resignation.^[22]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Profile in Campaigns & Elections, June, 2002.

Seymour Hersh
Seymour Hersh, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, April 2008
Born	(1937-04-08) April 8, 1937 (age 75) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Alma mater	University of Chicago
Occupation	Journalist
Spouse	Elizabeth Sarah Klein
Awards	Polk Award (1969, 1973, 1974, 1981, 2004)[1][2] Pulitzer Prize (1970)[3] George Orwell Award (2004)[4]

Seymour (Sy) Myron Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters. He has also won two National Magazine Awards and is a "five-time Polk winner and recipient of the 2004 George Orwell Award."^[5]

He first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. His 2004 reports on the US military's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison gained much attention.

Early years[link]

Hersh was born in Chicago to Yiddish-speaking Lithuanian Jewish parents who immigrated to the US from Lithuania and Poland and ran a dry-cleaning shop in the far west side neighborhood of Chicago, called Austin. After graduating from the University of Chicago, with a history degree Hersh found himself struggling to find a job. He began working at a Walgreens before being accepted into University of Chicago Law School but was soon expelled for poor grades.^[6] After returning for a short time to Walgreens, Hersh began his career in journalism as a police reporter for the City News Bureau in 1959. He later became a correspondent for United Press International in South Dakota. In 1963, he went on to become a Chicago and Washington correspondent for the Associated Press. While working in Washington Hersh first met and befriended I. F. Stone whose I. F. Stone's Weekly would serve as an initial inspiration for Hersh's later work. It was during this time that Hersh began to form his investigative style, often walking out of regimented press briefings at the Pentagon and seeking out one on one interviews with high ranking officers. After a falling out with the AP over their refusal to run a story on the US government's work on biological and chemical weapons Hersh left the AP and sold his story to The New Republic. During the 1968 presidential election, he served as press secretary for the campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy.

Vietnam and the New York Times[link]

After leaving the McCarthy campaign, Hersh returned to journalism as a freelancer covering the Vietnam War. In 1969, Hersh received a tip from Geoffrey Cowan of The Village Voice regarding an Army lieutenant being court-martialled for killing civilians in Vietnam. His subsequent investigation, sold to the Dispatch News Service, was run in thirty-three newspapers and exposed the My Lai massacre, winning him the Pulitzer Prize in 1970.^[6][7]

In 1972, Hersh was hired as a reporter for the Washington bureau of The New York Times, where he served from 1972 to 1975 and again in 1979. In 1975, Hersh was active in the investigation and reporting of Project Azorian (which he called Project Jennifer), the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine effort to raise a Soviet submarine using the Howard Hughes' Glomar Explorer.

After the New York Times[link]

His 1983 book The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House won him the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times book prize in biography. In 1985, Hersh contributed to the PBS television documentary Buying the Bomb. In 1993 Hersh became a regular contributor to The New Yorker.^[8]

Hersh has appeared regularly on the Democracy Now! show.^[9]

Selected stories[link]

My Lai Massacre[link]

On November 12, 1969, Hersh broke the story of the My Lai Massacre, in which hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians were murdered by US soldiers in March 1968.^[10] The report prompted widespread condemnation around the world and reduced public support for the Vietnam War in the United States. The explosive news of the massacre fueled the outrage of the US peace movement, which demanded the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam. Hersh wrote about the massacre and its cover-up in My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath and Cover-up: The Army's Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4. A movie was produced, based on this book, by Italian director Paolo Bertola in 2009.^[11]

Project Jennifer[link]

In early 1974, Hersh had planned to publish a story on Project Jennifer, the code name for a CIA project to recover a sunken Soviet navy submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Bill Kovach, The New York Times Washington, DC bureau chief at the time, said in 2005 that the government offered a convincing argument to delay publication in early 1974—exposure at that time, while the project was ongoing, "would have caused an international incident." The NYT eventually published its account in 1975, after a story appeared in the Los Angeles Times, and included a five-paragraph explanation of the many twists and turns in the path to publication. It is unclear what, if any, action was taken by the Soviet Union after learning of the story.

KAL 007[link]

In his 1986 book The Target is Destroyed (Random House), Hersh alleged that the Soviet shooting down of Korean Air Flight 007 in September 1983 was due to a combination of Soviet incompetence and United States intelligence operations intended to confuse Soviet responses.

Later releases of government information confirmed that there was a PSYOPS campaign against the Soviet Union that had been in place from the first few months of the Reagan administration. This campaign included the largest US Pacific Fleet exercise ever held, in April to May 1983. The report states that the Soviets, "probably didn't know (KAL 007) was a civilian aircraft" and uses Hersh's book as a reference for the PSYOPS campaign.^[12]

Mordechai Vanunu and Robert Maxwell[link]

In his 1991 book The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, Hersh wrote that Nicholas Davies, the foreign editor of The Daily Mirror, had tipped off the Israeli embassy in London about whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu. Vanunu had given information about Israel's nuclear weapons program first to The Sunday Times and later to the Sunday Mirror. At the time, the Sunday Mirror and its sibling newspaper, the Daily Mirror were owned by media magnate Robert Maxwell who was alleged to have had contacts with Israel's intelligence services. According to Hersh, Davies had also worked for the Mossad. Vanunu was later lured by Mossad from London to Rome, kidnapped, returned to Israel, and sentenced to 18 years in jail. Davies and Maxwell published an anti-Vanunu story that was claimed to be part of a disinformation campaign on behalf of the Israeli government.^[13]

Hersh repeated the allegations during a press conference held in London to publicize his book. No British newspaper would publish the allegations because of Maxwell's famed litigiousness. However, two British MPs raised the matter in the House of Commons, which meant that British newspapers were able to report what had been said without fear of being sued for libel. Maxwell called the claims "ludicrous, a total invention". He fired Nick Davies shortly thereafter.^[14]

Attack on pharmaceutical factory in Sudan[link]

On August 20, 1998, Hersh strongly criticized the destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory, the largest pharmaceutical factory in Sudan—providing about half the medicines produced in Sudan—by United States cruise missiles during Bill Clinton's presidency.^[15]

Iraq[link]

Hersh has written a series of articles for The New Yorker magazine detailing military and security matters surrounding the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. In March 2002 he described the planning process for a new invasion of Iraq that had been on-going since the end of the First Gulf War, under the leadership of Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Fried and other neo-conservatives. In a 2004 article, he alleged that Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld circumvented the normal intelligence analysis function of the CIA in their quest to make the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Another article, Lunch with the Chairman, led Richard Perle, a subject of the article, to call Hersh the "closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist."^[16]

A March 7, 2007 article entitled, "The Redirection" described the recent shift in the George W. Bush administration's Iraq policy, the goal of which is to "contain" Iran. Hersh points out that, "a by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."^[17]

In May 2004, Hersh published a series of articles which described the treatment of detainees by US military police at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq.^[18] The articles included allegations that private military contractors contributed to prisoner mistreatment and that intelligence agencies such as the CIA ordered torture in order to break prisoners for interrogations. They also alleged that torture is a usual practice in other US-run prisons as well, e.g., in Bagram Theater Internment Facility and Guantanamo. In subsequent articles, Hersh claimed that the abuses were part of a secret interrogation program, known as "Copper Green". According to Hersh's sources, the program was expanded to Iraq with the direct approval of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, both in an attempt to deal with the growing insurgency there and as part of "Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A."^[19] Much of his material for these articles was based on the Army's own internal investigations.^[20]

Scott Ritter points out in his October 19, 2005 interview with Seymour Hersh that the US policy to remove Iraqi president Saddam Hussein from power started with US president George H. W. Bush in August 1990. Ritter concludes from public remarks by President Bush and Secretary of State James Baker that the Iraq sanctions would only be lifted when Hussein was removed from power. The justification for sanctions was disarmament. The CIA offered the opinion that containing Hussein for six months would result in the collapse of his regime. This policy resulted in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

MR. HERSH: One of the things about your book that's amazing is that it's not only about the Bush Administration, and if there are any villains in this book, they include Sandy Berger, who was Clinton's national security advisor, and Madeleine Albright.

Another thing that's breathtaking about this book is the amount of new stories and new information. Scott describes in detail and with named sources, basically, a two or three-year run of the American government undercutting the inspection process. In your view, during those years, '91 to'98, particularly the last three years, was the United States interested in disarming Iraq?

MR. RITTER: Well, the fact of the matter is the United States was never interested in disarming Iraq. The whole Security Council resolution that created the UN weapons inspections and called upon Iraq to disarm was focused on one thing and one thing only, and that is a vehicle for the maintenance of economic sanctions that were imposed in August 1990 linked to the liberation of Kuwait. We liberated Kuwait, I participated in that conflict. And one would think, therefore, the sanctions should be lifted.

The United States needed to find a vehicle to continue to contain Saddam because the CIA said all we have to do is wait six months and Saddam is going to collapse on his own volition. That vehicle is sanctions. They needed a justification; the justification was disarmament. They drafted a Chapter 7 resolution of the United Nations Security Council calling for the disarmament of Iraq and saying in Paragraph 14 that if Iraq complies, sanctions will be lifted. Within months of this resolution being passed--and the United States drafted and voted in favor of this resolution--within months, the President, George Herbert Walker Bush, and his Secretary of State, James Baker, are saying publicly, not privately, publicly that even if Iraq complies with its obligation to disarm, economic sanctions will be maintained until which time Saddam Hussein is removed from power.

That is proof positive that disarmament was only useful insofar as it contained through the maintenance of sanctions and facilitated regime change. It was never about disarmament, it was never about getting rid of weapons of mass destruction. It started with George Herbert Walker Bush, and it was a policy continued through eight years of the Clinton presidency, and then brought us to this current disastrous course of action under the current Bush Administration.^[21]

Iran[link]

In January 2005, Hersh alleged that the US was conducting covert operations in Iran to identify targets for possible strikes. Hersh also claimed that Pakistan and the United States have struck a "Khan-for-Iran" deal in which Washington will look the other way at Pakistan's nuclear transgressions and not demand handing over of its nuclear proliferator A Q Khan, in return for Islamabad's cooperation in neutralising Iran's nuclear plans. This was also denied by officials of the governments of the US and Pakistan.

In the April 17, 2006 issue of The New Yorker,^[22] Hersh reported on the Bush administration's purported plans for an air strike on Iran. Of particular note in his article is that a US nuclear first strike (possibly using the B61-11 bunker-buster nuclear weapon) is under consideration to eliminate underground Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. In response, President Bush cited Hersh's reportage as "wild speculation." ^[23]

When, in October 2007, asked on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's hawkish views on Iran, Hersh claimed that Jewish donations were the main reason for these:

During one journalism conference, Hersh claimed that after the Strait of Hormuz incident, members of the Bush administration met in vice president Dick Cheney's office to consider methods of initiating a war with Iran. One idea considered was staging a false flag operation involving the use of Navy SEALs dressed as Iranian PT boaters who would engage in a firefight with US ships. This idea was shot down. This claim has not been verified.^[25]

Lebanon[link]

In August 2006, in an article in The New Yorker, Hersh claimed that the White House gave the green light for the Israeli government to execute an attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Supposedly, communication between the Israeli government and the US government about this came as early as two months in advance of the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others by Hezbollah prior to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict in July 2006.^[26] The US government denied these claims.^[27]

Criticism[link]

Kennedy research[link]

Hersh's 1997 book about John F. Kennedy, The Dark Side of Camelot, made a number of controversial assertions about the former president, including that he had had a "first marriage" to a woman named Durie Malcolm that was never terminated, that he had been a semi-regular narcotics user, that he had a close working relationship with mob boss Sam Giancana which supposedly included vote fraud in one or two crucial states in the 1960 presidential election. For many of these claims, Hersh relied only on hearsay collected decades after the event. In a Los Angeles Times review, Edward Jay Epstein cast doubt on these and other assertions, writing, "this book turns out to be, alas, more about the deficiencies of investigative journalism than about the deficiencies of John F. Kennedy."^[28] Responding to the book, historian and former Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called Hersh "the most gullible investigative reporter I've ever encountered."^[29]

Hersh repeatedly described Kennedy as a playboy and implied that many journalists were aware of his womanizing but turned a blind eye, even ignoring or denigrating witnesses to the infidelity who wanted to go public. One of Hersh's assertions on his theme, however, is backed with erroneous references (and remains unsubstantiated). The author identified one Florence M. Kater as a "middle-aged housewife"^[30] who supposedly knew of Kennedy's womanizing during his 1960 presidential campaign. According to Hersh, this woman, who was allegedly the former landlady of JFK's senatorial aide/love interest Pamela Turnure, decided in 1959 to break the news on this topic. Inexplicably, "in late 1958" (the year before she decided to go public) she "ambushed Kennedy leaving the new apartment [to which Turnure allegedly moved to escape Kater's eavesdropping] at three A.M. and took a photograph of the unhappy senator attempting to shield his face with a handkerchief."^[31]

Hersh did not publish such a photograph in The Dark Side of Camelot or cite an interview with Florence Kater. She died many years before he started work on the book. If another writer or journalist ever interviewed her, Hersh did not use such a source. In the book he asserted that Kater had attended a 1960 presidential campaign stop near Washington, DC carrying a blow-up of her alleged photograph of an adulterous Sen. Kennedy attempting to shield his face.^[32]

"Kater was not taken seriously by the national press corps," wrote Hersh, "but she came close to attracting media attention. On May 14, 1960, just four days after Kennedy won the West Virginia primary, she approached him at a political rally at the University of Maryland carrying a placard with an enlarged snapshot of the early-morning scene outside Pamela Turnure's apartment. Kennedy ignored her, but a photograph of the encounter was published in the next afternoon's Washington Star, along with a brief story describing her as a heckler.".^[32] The microfilmed editions of May 14, 15 and 16 of the Washington Star, known at the time as the Evening Star of Washington, DC and The Sunday Star, do not contain such a photograph or brief story. Hersh could not have confused it with the Washington Post or The Washington Daily News because neither the name "Florence Kater" nor a photograph of her appeared in those newspapers, either, in connection with the May 14 event.

A month before the book's publication, newspapers, including USA Today, reported Hersh's announcement that he had removed from the galleys, at the last minute, a segment about legal documents allegedly containing JFK's signature.^[33] A paralegal named Lawrence Cusack had shared them with Hersh and encouraged the author to discuss them in the book.^[34] Shortly before Hersh's publicized announcement, federal investigators began probing Cusack's sale of the documents at auction.^[34] After The Dark Side of Camelot became a bestseller, Cusack was convicted by a federal jury in Manhattan of forging the documents and sentenced to a long prison term.^[35] The documents signed by "John F. Kennedy" included a provision, in 1960, for a trust fund to be set up for the institutionalized mother of Marilyn Monroe.^[34][36] In 1997 the Kennedy family denied Cusack's claim that his late father had been an attorney who had represented JFK in 1960.^[34]

Use of anonymous sources[link]

Some have criticized Hersh's use of anonymous sources in his reporting; implying that some of these sources are unreliable or even made up. In a review of Hersh's book, Chain of Command, commentator Amir Taheri wrote, "As soon as he has made an assertion he cites a 'source' to back it. In every case this is either an un-named former official or an unidentified secret document passed to Hersh in unknown circumstances... By my count Hersh has anonymous 'sources' inside 30 foreign governments and virtually every department of the U.S. government."^[37]

David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, maintains that he is aware of the identity of all of Hersh's unnamed sources, telling the Columbia Journalism Review that "I know every single source that is in his pieces.... Every 'retired intelligence officer,' every general with reason to know, and all those phrases that one has to use, alas, by necessity, I say, 'Who is it? What's his interest?' We talk it through."^[38]

In a response to an article in The New Yorker in which Hersh alleged that the U.S. government was planning a strike on Iran, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Brian Whitman said, "This reporter has a solid and well-earned reputation for making dramatic assertions based on thinly sourced, unverifiable anonymous sources."^[39]

Speeches[link]

Those who criticize Hersh's credibility especially point to allegations Hersh has made in public speeches and interviews, rather than in print. In an interview with New York magazine, Hersh made a distinction between the standards of strict factual accuracy for his print reporting and the leeway he allows himself in speeches, in which he may talk informally about stories still being worked on or blur information to protect his sources. "Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people... I can’t fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say."^[40]

Some of Hersh's speeches concerning the Iraq War have described violent incidents involving U.S. troops in Iraq. In July 2004, during the height of the Abu Ghraib scandal, he alleged that American troops sexually assaulted young boys:

In a subsequent interview with New York magazine, Hersh regretted that "I actually didn’t quite say what I wanted to say correctly...it wasn’t that inaccurate, but it was misstated. The next thing I know, it was all over the blogs. And I just realized then, the power of—and so you have to try and be more careful."^[40] In his book, Chain of Command, he wrote that one of the witness statements he had read described the rape of a boy by a foreign contract interpreter at Abu Ghraib, during which a woman took pictures.^[40]

Link between the US government and Fatah al-Islam[link]

In March 2007 Hersh asserted in a piece in The New Yorker that the United States and Saudi governments were funding the terrorist organization Fatah al-Islam through aid to Lebanese Sunni Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.^[41] Following the publishing of the story journalists in Beirut uncovered that Hersh put forth the claim without any reliable sources. Hersh had heard the unconfirmed story from Robert Fisk who had, in turn, heard the story from former British intelligence agent Alastair Crooke. Crooke had only heard it circulated as rumor and no one had fact checked the claims before Hersh ran the story^[42] which prompted a variety of criticisms.^[43]

Morarji Desai Libel Suit[link]

Hersh claimed in his 1983 book The Price of Power that former Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai had been paid $20,000 a year by the CIA during the Johnson and Nixon administration. Desai called the allegation "a scandalous and malicious lie" and filed a $50 million libel suit against Hersh. By the time the case went to trial Desai, by then 93, was too ill to attend. CIA director Richard Helms and Henry Kissinger testified under oath that at no time did Desai act in any capacity for the CIA, paid or otherwise. Since Hersh did not have to take the stand or reveal the name of his alleged source, the Judge found in favor of Hersh.^[44][45]

Publications[link]

Books[link]

• Hersh, Seymour M. (1968), Chemical and Biological Warfare: America's Hidden Arsenal, New York, New York: Bobbs-Merrill (US) and London: MacGibbon & Kee (UK). ISBN 0-586-03295-9.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1970). My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath. Random House. ISBN 0-394-43737-3.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1972). Cover-up: the Army's secret investigation of the massacre at My Lai 4. Random House. ISBN 0-394-47460-0.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1983). The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-44760-2. Excerpts from The Price of Power hosted by Third World Traveler
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1986). The Target Is Destroyed: What Really Happened to Flight 007 and What America Knew About It. Random House. ISBN 0-394-54261-4.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1991). The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House. ISBN 0-394-57006-5.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1997). The Dark Side of Camelot. Little, Brown & Company. ISBN 0-316-36067-8.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (1998). Against All Enemies: Gulf War Syndrome: The War Between America's Ailing Veterans and Their Government. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-42748-3.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (2004). Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-019591-6.
• Hersh, Seymour M. (TBD). [book on the Cheney vice presidency]^[46]

Articles/Reportage[link]

• "Full list of published articles in the New Yorker

• "Huge CIA Operation Reported in US against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents During Nixon Years" by Seymour Hersh, New York Times, December 22, 1974 — Hersh's article detailing CIA covert operations which eventually led to the formation of the Church Committee.

This section requires expansion.

Forewords[link]

• Hersh, Seymour M. (foreword) (2005) in Scott Ritter: Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (Hardcover), Nation Books, ISBN 1-56025-852-7

See also[link]

• Church Committee (United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Hersh's December 22, 1974 New York Times article on CIA operations was the main reason for the creation of this committee)
• Ari Ben-Menashe
• Mordechai Vanunu
• Robert Maxwell
• Opposition to war against Iran

References[link]

External links[link]

• Seymour Hersh at the Internet Movie Database
• Seymour Hersh Interviewed by Mehdi Hasan

Articles[link]

• "Current State of Investigating Reporting", talk given at BU, May 19 2009
• "The Traitor" — The case against Jonathan Pollard, The New Yorker, January 18, 1999 issue
• "Overwhelming Force" — What happened in the final days of the Gulf War?, The New Yorker, May 22, 2000 issue
• "The Cold Test" — What the Administration knew about Pakistan and the North Korean nuclear program., The New Yorker, January 27, 2003 issue
• "Lunch with the Chairman" — Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?, The New Yorker, March 17, 2003 issue
• "Who Lied to Whom?" — Why did the Administration endorse a forgery about Iraq’s nuclear program?, The New Yorker, March 31, 2003 issue
• "Offense and Defense" — The battle between Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon., The New Yorker, April 7, 2003 issue
• "Selective Intelligence" — Selective Intelligence, The New Yorker, May 12, 2003 issue
• "The Syrian Bet" — Did the Bush Admin. burn a useful source on Al Qaeda? The New Yorker, July 28, 2003 issue
• "The Stovepipe" — How conflicts between the Bush Admin. and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons. The New Yorker, October 27, 2003 issue
• "Moving Targets" — Will the counter-insurgency plan in Iraq repeat the mistakes of Vietnam?. The New Yorker, December 15, 2003 issue
• "The Deal" — Why is Washington going easy on Pakistan’s nuclear black marketers? The New Yorker, March 8, 2004 issue
• "The Other War" — Why Bush’s Afghanistan problem won’t go away., The New Yorker, April 12, 2004 issue
• "Torture at Abu Ghraib" — American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?, The New Yorker, May 10, 2004 issue
• "Chain of Command" — How the Department of Defense mishandled the disaster at Abu Ghraib, The New Yorker, May 17, 2004 issue
• "The Gray Zone" — How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib, The New Yorker, May 24, 2004 issue
• "Plan B" — As June 30 approaches, Israel looks to the Kurds, The New Yorker, June 28, 2004 issue
• "The Coming Wars" — What the Pentagon can now do in secret, The New Yorker, January 24, 2005 issue and the response by the Department of Defense
• "Watergate Days", The New Yorker, June 13, 2005 issue
• "Get Out the Vote" — Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq's Elections?, The New Yorker, July 25, 2005 issue
• "Up in the Air" — Where is the Iraq war headed next?, The New Yorker, December 5, 2005 issue
• "The Iran Plans" — Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?, The New Yorker, April 17, 2006 issue
• "Last Stand" — The military's dissent on Iran policy., The New Yorker, July 10 & 17 2006 issue
• "Watching Lebanon" — Washington’s interests in Israel’s war., The New Yorker, August 21, 2006 issue
• "The Next Act" — Is a damaged Administration less likely to attack Iran, or more?, The New Yorker, November 27, 2006 issue
• "The Redirection" — Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?, The New Yorker, March 5, 2007 issue
• "The General's Report" — How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties, The New Yorker, June 25, 2007 issue
• "Shifting Targets" — The Administration’s plan for Iran, The New Yorker, October 8, 2007 issue
• "A Strike in the Dark" — What did Israel bomb in Syria?, The New Yorker, February 11, 2008 issue
• "Preparing the Battlefield" — The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran, The New Yorker, July 7, 2008 issue
• "Syria Calling" — The Obama Administration’s chance to engage in a Middle East peace, The New Yorker, April 6, 2009 issue
• "Defending the Arsenal" — In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?, The New Yorker, November 16, 2009 issue
• "The Online Threat" — Should we be worried about a cyber war?, The New Yorker, November 1, 2010 issue
• "Iran and the Bomb" — How real is the nuclear threat?, The New Yorker, June 6, 2011 issue

William Westmoreland
Birth name	William Childs Westmoreland
Nickname	Westy
Born	(1914-03-26)March 26, 1914 Saxon, South Carolina
Died	July 18, 2005(2005-07-18) (aged 91) Charleston, South Carolina
Place of burial	West Point Cemetery
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1936 - 1972
Rank	General
Commands held	504th Parachute Infantry Regiment 187th Regimental Combat Team 101st Airborne Division Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy XVIII Airborne Corps Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Chief of Staff of the United States Army
Battles/wars	World War II Korean War Vietnam War
Awards	Distinguished Service Medal (3) Legion of Merit (3) Bronze Star (2) Air Medal (10)

William Childs Westmoreland (March 26, 1914 – 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. He adopted a strategy of attrition against the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese Army. He later served as U.S. Army Chief of Staff from 1968 to 1972.

Early life[link]

William Westmoreland was born in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, to Eugenia Talley Childs and James Ripley Westmoreland. His upper-middle-class family was involved in the local banking and textile industries. William was an Eagle Scout at Troop 1 Boy Scouts and became an Eagle Scout at the age of 15, and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo from the Boy Scouts of America as a young adult. After spending a year at The Citadel in 1932 he was appointed to attend the West Point Military Academy. His motive for entering West Point was "to see the world." 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 graduating rank - and received the Pershing Sword, which is given to the most able cadet at the academy.^[1][2] Westmoreland also served as the Superintendent of the Protestant Sunday School Teachers.^[3] Following graduation in 1936, he became an artillery officer and served in several different commands. In World War II he saw combat in Tunisia, Sicily, France and Germany. He reached the temporary wartime rank of colonel, and on October 13, 1944, was appointed the chief of staff of the 9th Infantry Division.^[4]

Westmoreland established a balanced reputation as a stern taskmaster who cared about his men and took a great interest in their welfare. One called him "the most caring officer, for soldiers, that I have ever known".^{[citation needed]} After the war he completed a three month management program at Harvard Business School. As Stanley Karnow noted, "Westy was a corporation executive in uniform."^[5]

Vietnam[link]

General Westmoreland, President Lyndon B. Johnson and president of South Vietnam Nguyen Van Thieu in October 1966.

General Westmoreland with Lyndon B. Johnson decorating a soldier in Vietnam, October 1966.

General Westmoreland with Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House, November 1967.

Press conference outside the White House in April 1968.

In June 1964, he became deputy commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), assuming direct control from General Paul D. Harkins. As the head of the MACV he was known for highly publicized, positive assessments of US military prospects in Vietnam. However, as time went on, the strengthening of communist combat forces in the South led to regular requests for increases in US troop strength, from 16,000 when he arrived to its peak of 535,000 in 1968 when he was promoted to Army Chief of Staff.

On April 28, 1967, Westmoreland addressed a joint session of Congress. "In evaluating the enemy strategy," he said, "It is evident to me that he believes our Achilles heel is our resolve ... Your continued strong support is vital to the success of our mission ... Backed at home by resolve, confidence, patience, determination and continued support, we will prevail in Vietnam over the Communist aggressor!"

The 29-minute speech was interrupted nineteen times by applause, but congressional and popular support for the war thereafter continued to decline.

Under Westmoreland's leadership, United States forces "won every battle."^[6] The turning point of the war was the 1968 Tet Offensive, in which communist forces, having staged a diversion at the Battle of Khe Sanh, attacked cities and towns throughout South Vietnam. US and South Vietnamese troops successfully fought off the attacks, and the communist forces took heavy losses, but the ferocity of the assault shook public confidence in Westmoreland's previous assurances about the state of the war. Political debate and public opinion led the Johnson administration to limit further increases in US troop numbers in Vietnam. When news of the My Lai Massacre broke, Westmoreland resisted pressure from the Nixon administration for a cover-up,^{[citation needed]} and pressed for a full and impartial investigation by Lieutenant General William R. Peers. Westmoreland also made efforts to investigate the Phong Nhi and Phong Nhat massacre.^[7]

Westmoreland was convinced that the Vietnamese communists could be destroyed by fighting a war of attrition that, theoretically, would render the Vietnam People's Army unable to fight. 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 anti-communists' vastly superior firepower and technology. However, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF) were able to dictate the pace of attrition to fit their own goals: by continuing to fight a guerrilla war and avoiding large-unit battles, they denied the Americans the chance to fight the kind of war they were best at, and they ensured that attrition would wear down the American public's support for the war faster than them.^{[citation needed]} Westmoreland repeatedly rebuffed or suppressed attempts by John Paul Vann and Lew Walt to shift to a "pacification" strategy^[6] Westmoreland had little appreciation of the patience of the US public for his time frame, and was struggling to convince President Lyndon B. Johnson to approve widening the war into Cambodia and Laos in order to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He was unable to use the absolutist stance, "we can't win unless we expand the war" [into Cambodia and Laos]. Instead he focused on "positive indicators" which ultimately turned worthless when the Tet Offensive occurred, since all his pronouncements of "positive indicators" didn't hint at the possibility of such a last gasp dramatic event. Tet outmaneuvered all of Westmoreland's pronouncements on "positive indicators" in the minds of the American public.^{[citation needed]} 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 US support for the war, even though the events of early 1968 put the US and South Vietnam into a much stronger military position.

Post-Vietnam[link]

Westmoreland was replaced by General Creighton Abrams in June 1968, the decision being announced shortly after the Tet Offensive. Although the decision had been made in late 1967, it was widely seen in the media as a punishment for being caught off guard by the communist assault. Westmoreland served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1968 to 1972, then retired from the Army. Many military historians have pointed out that Westmoreland became Chief of Staff at the worst time in history with regard to the Army. Guiding the Army as it transitioned to an all-volunteer force, he issued many directives to try to make Army life better and more palatable for America's youth, e.g. allowing soldiers to wear sideburns and drink beer in the mess hall. However, many hard-liners scorned these as too liberal. Westmoreland ran unsuccessfully for Governor of South Carolina in 1974. He published his autobiography the following year. Westmoreland later served on a task force to improve educational standards in the state of South Carolina. He was mentioned in a Time magazine article as a potential candidate for the 1968 Republican nomination.^[8]

In 1986, Westmoreland served as Grand Marshall of the Chicago Vietnam Veteran's parade. 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.^[9][10]

Westmoreland v. CBS: The Uncounted Enemy[link]

Mike Wallace interviewed Westmoreland for the CBS special The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception. The documentary, shown on January 23, 1982, and prepared largely by CBS producer George Crile III, alleged that Westmoreland and others had deliberately underestimated Viet Cong troop strength during 1967 in order to maintain US troop morale and domestic support for the war. Westmoreland filed a lawsuit against CBS.

In Westmoreland v. CBS, Westmoreland sued Wallace and CBS for libel, and a lengthy legal process began. While the trial was in progress, Westmoreland suddenly settled with CBS for an apology, no more than CBS had originally offered. Some contend that Judge Leval's instructions to the jury over what constituted "actual malice" to prove libel convinced Westmoreland's lawyers that he was certain to lose.^[11][12] 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. Disagreements persist about the appropriateness of some of the methods of CBS' editors.^[13]

A deposition by McChristian indicates that his organization developed improved intelligence on the number of irregular Viet Cong combatants shortly before he left Vietnam on a regularly scheduled rotation. The numbers troubled Westmoreland, who feared that the press would not understand them. He did not order them changed, but instead did not include the information in reporting to Washington, which in his view was a decision that the data were not appropriate to report.

Based on later analysis of the information from all sides, it appears clear that Westmoreland could not sustain a libel suit because CBS's principal allegation was that he had caused intelligence officers to suppress facts. Westmoreland's anger was caused by the implication of the broadcast that his intent was fraudulent and that he ordered others to lie.

During the acrimonious trial, Mike Wallace was hospitalized for depression, and despite the legal conflict separating the two, Westmoreland and his wife sent him flowers. 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.

Views[link]

Herbert Elmer Abrams' portrait of General Westmoreland

In a 1998 interview for George magazine, Westmoreland criticized the battlefield prowess of his opponent North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap. "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. By his own admission, by early 1969, I think, he had lost, what, a half million soldiers? He reported this. Now such a disregard for human life may make a formidable adversary, but it does not make a military genius. An American commander losing men like that would hardly have lasted more than a few weeks."

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...We value life and human dignity. They don't care about life and human dignity."

For the remainder of his life, he 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. By virtue of Vietnam, the U.S. held the line for 10 years and stopped the dominoes from falling."

Personal life[link]

While stationed at Fort Sill, he first met the daughter of the post Executive Officer, Katherine (Kitsy) Stevens Van Deusen, 9 years old at the time. They were married in 1947 and had three children: a daughter, Katherine Stevens; a son, James Ripley II; and another daughter, Margaret Childs.^[14]

Just hours after Westmoreland was sworn in as Army Chief of Staff on July 7, 1968, his brother-in-law, LTC 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.^[15]

Westmoreland died on July 18, 2005, at the age of 91 at the Bishop Gadsden retirement home in Charleston, South Carolina. He had suffered from Alzheimer's disease during the final years of his life. He was buried on July 23, 2005, at the West Point Cemetery, United States Military Academy.^[16]

The General William B. Westmoreland Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina, is named in his honor.^[17]

In 1996, the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution authorized the General William C. Westmoreland award. The award is given each year in recognition to an outstanding SAR Veterans Volunteer.^[18]

Dates of rank[link]

United States Military Academy class of 1936

Second Lieutenant (Regular Army)	First Lieutenant (Regular Army)	Major (Army of the United States)	Lieutenant Colonel (Army of the United States)	Colonel (Army of the United States)
O-1	O-2	O-4	O-5	O-6
June 1936	June 1939	February 1942 (temporary)	September 1942 (temporary)	June 1944 (temporary)

Captain (Regular Army)	Major (Regular Army)	Brigadier General (Regular Army)	Lieutenant Colonel (Regular Army)	Major General (Regular Army)
O-3	O-4	O-7	O-5	O-8
June 1946	July 1948	November 1952 (temporary)	July 1953	December 1956 (temporary)

Colonel (Regular Army)	Brigadier General (Regular Army)	Lieutenant General (Regular Army)	General (Regular Army)	General (Regular Army)
O-6	O-7	O-9	O-10	O-10
June 1961	February 1963	July 1963	August 1964 (temporary)	August 1965

Retired from active service in July 1972.^[19]

Awards and decorations[link]

General Westmoreland earned the following U.S. and foreign decorations and awards:

U.S. military decorations

  Distinguished Service Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters^[20]

  Legion of Merit with two Oak Leaf Clusters

  Bronze Star, with one Oak Leaf Cluster

  Air Medal, with nine Oak Leaf Clusters

  American Defense Service Medal

  American Campaign Medal

  EAME Campaign Medal with seven campaign stars

  World War II Victory Medal

  Army of Occupation Medal with Germany clasp

  National Defense Service Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster

  Korean Service Medal with two campaign stars

  Vietnam Service Medal with seven service stars

Presidential Unit Citation (34th Field Artillery Battalion, Tunisia, 1943)

Foreign decorations and awards

Légion d'honneur (France)

60px Croix de guerre with Palm (France)

Ulchi Distinguished Service Medal with Gold Star (Korea)

Order of Military Merit Taeguk (Korea)

Order of Sikatuna, rank of Lankan (Commander) (Philippines)

60px Chuong My Medal (Vietnam)

60px Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Holy Trinity (post-nominal: GCHT) (Ethiopia)^[21]

60px National Order of Vietnam, First Class (Vietnam)

Gallantry Cross (Vietnam)

Distinguished Service Order First Class (Army) (Vietnam)

Distinguished Service Order First Class (Air Force) (Vietnam)

Distinguished Service Order First Class (Navy) (Vietnam)

Armed Forces Honor Medal, First Class (Vietnam)

Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant, Knight Grand Cross (First Class) (Thailand)

Order of National Security, First Class (Korea)

60px Ordem do Mérito Militar (Order of Military Merit, degree of Great Officer) (Brazil)

60px Guerrillero José Miguel Lanza Gran Official (Bolivia)

United Nations Korea Medal

Vietnam Campaign Medal

Presidential Unit Citation (187th Regimental Combat Team, 1953) (Korea)

Civil Actions Medal, First Class (Vietnam)

60px Gallantry Cross Fourragère (Korea)